


As Long As I Have You By My Side

by MissMoe



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hand Jobs, Jealousy, K-pop References, M/M, Masturbation, Memories, Part Two of this AU begins at Chapter 22, Reconciliation, Sexy Times, Soulmates, Spoilers, The dead don't really go away, True Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:27:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 48,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissMoe/pseuds/MissMoe
Summary: “Ash…let this be your first time,” Eiji said, like it was a prayer.“It is,” Ash replied, his breath hot against Eiji’s cheek. “I’ve never done this with someone I love.”***Eiji returns to New York and stays with Ash. In more ways than one.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you are anime-only, then please DON'T READ THIS until you've watched all 24 episodes because it contains SPOILERS. If you have read the entire manga, including Volume 19 with its post-Banana Fish time-skip “Garden of Light” story, then read on.

His whole life had been a series of things denied, abused, stolen—the innocence of childhood, the love of a mother and father, the right to free will, happiness, freedom. It had all been taken away so early, his humanity trampled by those who found his beauty irresistible, by those who wanted to cage him in like an exquisite breed of wildcat—be it lynx, tiger, leopard, lion—or by those who simply envied his brilliance. Aslan Jade Callenreese had never asked for it, never _wanted_ it, but he had been _rare_ nonetheless, as rare as a perfect jadestone that could only _mimic_ the green of his irises, a gang leader who could bring another man to his knees with one cold, commanding stare. 

None of that had meant anything to Eiji Okumura, though. The nineteen-year-old Japanese college student was either too naïve or inexperienced or _dense_ to fear what a more worldly boy would have when faced with a stone cold murderer. Eiji only saw the sweet soul beneath the icy exterior: a soul that was fragile, wounded, sobbing in its sleep when the nightmares ran rampant and all Eiji could do was pretend he didn’t hear Ash’s pitiful cries for a mother who had abandoned him to an uncaring father. It was all he could do to preserve what little dignity Ash could claim as his own when he had nothing else but shame and regret and guilt to burden him during the light of day. Eiji had promised to stay by Ash’s side. “Forever.” That is what Eiji had said, and he meant it even if Ash didn’t dare to hope for such loyalty, such love. What could he give Ash _except_ love and loyalty? Ash was his superior in every way, even though Ash was two years younger, he was ages ahead of Eiji in experience, in _life_. But in his unguarded heart, Eiji knew that he possessed what Ash lacked, what Ash _needed_ , and he would give it to him freely because nothing was just coincidence or chance. He was _meant_ to be with Ash or else none of this would have happened and all the suffering would have been for naught. All the mayhem and violence and heartache…all of that would have happened for no reason if love and loyalty counted for so little. If Ash’s life had been a clusterfuck of agony, then Eiji would be the balm that would heal him. He would be everything that had been cruelly taken from him: innocence, purity, freedom. He would give it all back to him and make Ash whole again.

That was Eiji’s plan. He would go back to Japan as Ash wanted him to and make amends with his family, explain away his injury and promise that he was just fine, so fucking fine and dandy. True, he had asked Sing to deliver his letter to Ash, the letter with the plane ticket to Japan tucked inside, and then he had boarded the plane with Ibe-san secretly hoping that Ash would follow suit. The entire flight back to Narita, Eiji had prayed for Ash’s safety, pushing aside the crushing disappointment he had felt when Ash didn’t pay him a visit in the hospital one more time before he was discharged. He didn’t even want to think about the tears he had choked back at JFK when Bones and Kong and Sing and Max had wished him and Ibe-san goodbye for now. Sing had shouted excitedly, “Ash can’t wait to see you again!” And yet…Ash wasn’t there to see him off, and Eiji had never felt so much distress, so much sadness and need. That was saying a lot, all things considered. They had been threatened with death how many times? And yet…Ash’s thundering absence was like the worst death ever.

“I’ll see you again,” Eiji told himself. “You’ll read my letter and understand how much I love you. You’ll understand that the only thing that must be is for me to be by your side, and you by my side. What else do we need but to be together, us against the entire world?” He had leaned his head against Ibe-san’s shoulder and closed his eyes, if only to prevent the tears from escaping.

All his prayers…

Ash was gone. Gone like smoke, like a fire put out in the rain, smothered, then…all Eiji had left was the memory of his scent. Even more than the memory of Ash’s face or his brilliant green eyes and golden hair—green like the most precious jade, gold like the most precious metal—was the smell of his soap and shampoo. What was it? Verbena and honey? Oh, to embrace him once more! Eiji had flown back to New York even before his wound was fully healed. He couldn’t wait. It didn’t matter that Ash hadn’t made use of the ticket he had given him. Deep down inside, Eiji knew that New York was in Ash’s blood, it was his home, a place he knew like the back of his hand. It had been foolish to think that Ash could ever trade New York for Japan. Heck, Eiji couldn’t wait to get out of Japan himself and back to New York, back to Ash, back to the green and the gold and the scent of him.

Except…it was Sing who met him at JFK when Eiji arrived back in the States against the wishes of his family. Ibe-san had accompanied him, silently harboring the truth that Max had revealed to him earlier in an email, a truth that Shunichi hadn’t had the heart to tell Eiji. So it fell to Sing to give Eiji the news that Ash was dead, stabbed in the gut by Sing's own former lieutenant, Lao, who had attacked Ash in a misguided attempt to protect his half-brother. “He really thought Ash was going to kill me,” Sing explained to Eiji, who was mute with disbelief, with shock, with grief that would probably take three thousand lifetimes to soothe. Sing told a lie, though, if not for Eiji, then for himself. “He died instantly. He didn’t suffer, Eiji. He went peacefully.” 

Eiji had nodded, his eyes blind, his mind black and without direction. He couldn’t speak, his throat so constricted he thought he would gag, choke on his own despair. Ash was gone? How? How could he have died when he was so strong? Ash Lynx. A beautiful wild animal that could not be caged or tamed. Or destroyed. No. Ash couldn’t be destroyed. He would live on like that fearless leopard that had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Hemingway’s story, the leopard that had reached the summit and whose corpse was preserved for all eternity. All eternity! “You’re not dead,” Eiji told himself. “You’ll live forever. I will keep you alive, in my heart, forever. I promised you, Ash. Forever.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Episode 17 just aired for the anime, so here's another chapter. Again, it contains SPOILERS and makes references to things that only manga readers will recognize, but I'm still loving the way the manga has been adapted to the anime, subtle changes and all. Bravo Mappa Studio!

“Why’d you do it, man? I mean, you had _hours_.” Shorter took off his sunglasses and scowled, mumbling to himself, “How can these be dirty already? I just cleaned them for shit’s sake.” 

Ash watched his friend—still sporting that hideous purple-dyed mohawk even in the Land of the Dead—wipe the lenses of his Wayfarers with a filthy handkerchief pulled from the back pocket of his jeans and thought, “Well, _that_ could be why.” Aloud, though, Ash struggled to explain his actions or, rather, his _lack_ of actions that fateful day in front of the New York Public Library. His senses, including razor-sharp eye-hand coordination, had been honed since the age of fourteen by Blanca, an ex-KGB assassin brought in by Papa Dino to complete Ash’s ‘education’ in all things deadly. Three more years of gangbanging in Lower Manhattan had trained Ash to remain in a perpetual state of hyperawareness, even in his sleep, so it was completely out of character for him to be distracted, especially on the street and in the open, but Eiji’s letter was fresh on his mind. The words inked on the pages were swirling inside him and lifting him high as a kite. He was soaring—soaring with joy, with hope, with possibilities, with a future in which he could change his fate—flying through the sky as free as a bird, just like Eiji had that day when he had stunned both him and little Skip by pole vaulting over that wall topped with barbed wire. The letter, the ticket…Eiji was giving him the means to do the same: fly to freedom and Ash couldn’t wait to… 

The blade lodging easily into his gut was such a surprise that even Lao was taken aback. Lao was there for the sole purpose of saving his half-brother Sing from certain death at Ash’s hand. Sing had challenged Ash to a face-off and Ash had accepted in front of his gang, Sing’s and Cain’s men, too. Sing had signed his own death warrant, but he had also proven beyond a shred of doubt that he would die for his boys like a true gang leader, and it had cemented Lao’s conviction to defend his younger half-brother to the death, his own death, that is. He never expected to get close enough to Ash to inflict more than a flesh wound if he were wildly lucky, so what the hell was this? Why had Ash done nothing to sidestep his clumsy attack? Lao had only a second to ponder the question, because in the next moment the shot rang out and blood bloomed hot and rich red on his own shirt. It didn’t matter, though, because Ash had pulled the trigger too late; Lao’s blade had hit its mark first. Like a Fury from a Greek tragedy, Lao had played his part as executioner but with reckless ignorance. It seemed strange that the sky had not been rent in two.

“I figured I wasn’t going to make it to the airport after Lao stabbed me,” Ash said with a shrug. He and Shorter were both sitting on the rooftop of one of their old flophouses, facing into the sun as it lowered towards the horizon. As was his habit in life, Ash had his knees pulled up, his elbows resting on them, slightly hunched in on himself, a defensive posture when in repose. He absently picked at a scab on his thumb before continuing. “Gotta say, it was embarrassing. I’ve never let anyone sneak up on me like that. My head was really up my ass.” Ash shook his head, still incredulous though that day was long past, and Shorter, sunglasses back on and still smudged, grunted wordlessly in agreement. “So…I don’t know, I went back into the library, sat down at my favorite table…I read the letter again. It made me…so happy. Like nothing could ever be better than that moment, right then, right there, nothing in life could be better than that feeling I had. Anything else would just be a right royal disappointment. You know what I mean?”

“No. You’re an idiot.” Shorter scratched at his head, frustration making him itch all over. God, he hoped he didn’t have lice. Were there lice in the afterlife? If there were cockroaches in the afterlife—and there sure as hell were plenty of them—then there were probably lice, too. Shit. He really needed to stop sleeping on mattresses picked off the street. “You could have called for an ambulance; you could have gone to the ER. They would have patched you up in no time. You said yourself that Lao missed all your organs. But no. You had to go sit your skinny ass in the fucking library and bleed out for hours and hours. That is inexcusable!” Shorter reached out and slapped Ash across the back of the head to bring home the point. “You shooting me, that I can forgive, no problem. But you…what you did to Eiji…I can’t forgive that, bro. You knew this was going to gut him, but you did it anyway.” 

Ash turned his head and stared right into the sun, letting it burn his eyes. “Yeah. Sometimes I wonder if I made the wrong choice.” The thing is, it would have been selfish, easier of course, but selfish to have gone the route Shorter said he should have. To go on living, maybe even make it all the way to Japan…it would have meant seeing Eiji again. But then what? Even if he managed to hide out in Japan, which seemed preposterous right off the bat, even if he could find some way to make a living in a foreign country, getting by on the five words he knew how to speak in Japanese, he could never escape his past. His past with its shitstorm of violence would find him no matter where he was, of that he was certain, and if he were anywhere near Eiji, then that violence would find him, too, and eat him up as it had consumed Ash himself, and he couldn’t, _wouldn’t_ let that happen. So he chose to let it all slip away with his blood, drop by drop. He let Eiji go, _especially_ Eiji, because the most important thing, the one good thing he could accomplish in his wasted wreck of a life, was to protect Eiji’s purity, his innocence. Time and again Ash had killed to keep Eiji safe, and yet Eiji had saved him without ever spilling blood. His goodness carried that much power.

“One time…” Ash finally murmured, then stopped.

“One time what?” Shorter nudged the small of Ash’s back with a sneakered foot as he lay sprawled on the rooftop gazing up at the darkening sky. For as long as they have known each other, from as far back as their reform school days when Ash was maybe thirteen, getting Ash to talk was like pulling teeth. Now that they had nothing to do in the afterlife except shoot the breeze and impotently watch the living go about their daily business, it was still like pulling teeth.

“One time, when we were at the library together, Eiji told me to eat my own wiener.”

That made Shorter bolt upright in a hurry. “Th’ fuck?! _Eiji_ said that?”

A smile crept across Ash’s lips at the memory. “We were there all day 'cause I was researching Banana Fish, and he was cranky and hungry and said he was going to go get a hot dog,” Ash explained. Context was everything, he realized. “I asked him to get me one too—with lots of sauerkraut and mustard—and he told me to eat my own wiener. Can you believe that? The little shit.”

“I’ll be damned,” chuckled Shorter, “and you let him get away with it?”

“I think he was just pissed because I made fun of him for reading those stupid comics of his.”

“They’re called _mangas_ dude. You are so out of the loop.”

“This is America, you Chinese freak, and in America we call them _comics_.”

“Yeah, well, do you know what the Chinese word for _wiener_ is?” asked Shorter, more than a little miffed.

“Something completely unpronounceable, I’m sure, with an ‘x’ and ‘g’ and ‘q’ in it,” Ash snarked back. 

“The Chinese word for _wiener_ ,” Shorter declared to all of Dead New York, “is _Ash Lynx_!” And with that triumphant statement, Shorter whipped out his handkerchief again and added a few more smudges to his Wayfarers, a rare laugh from Ash echoing into the evening sky.

_______

This fan-made video just seems to capture perfectly both the love and the tragedy shared by Ash, Eiji, and Shorter: [Banana Fish AMV by krystal kitty](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Gt_GIMTg8Q) 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the ANIME, Ash tells Eiji to go buy a manga for himself when they are at the library and Eiji merely sticks his tongue out at Ash when he tells him to get him a hot dog, too, but in the MANGA, if my memory serves me right, Ash makes reference to Eiji's love of "comics" and Eiji really does tell Ash to eat his own wiener. I don't mind the changes in the anime, although I was really hoping the "wiener" reference wouldn't get cut. Oh well. All the more reason to read the manga, too!


	3. Chapter 3

His first kiss ever had been a surprise to say the least.

“Come alone next time,” Ash had said, his left hand carding through Eiji’s hair, fingers brushing against an earlobe and sending an electric jolt down Eiji’s spine.

Ash had bent down slowly, spanning the few inches between them before he had pressed his warm lips to Eiji’s mouth, and all the while Eiji had stared like a fool, wondering, “What is this?”

It was later, much later that he realized what it all meant, what it had become. Love. So much love. Of course, that day in the prison he had excused himself politely in front of Ibe-san and Charlie after Ash had fondled his ass cheek with an affectionate squeeze and walked off with an insouciant, “Later, sweetie. Bye!”

The capsule that Ash had slipped into his mouth with that kiss had meant that, well, it wasn’t really a kiss after all, not _that_ kind of kiss, the kind of kiss shared by _lovers_. Still, the silken feel of Ash’s tongue pushing hot and wet into his mouth had made Eiji shiver with delight, made his virgin cock leap to rigid life in his trousers. He had dashed into the men’s room and spit out the capsule, read the message hidden within, and then…he had jacked it like a horny fiend in the stall, splashing his cum into the toilet before wiping his cock with a wad of tissue held in his trembling hand. “Ash,” Eiji had muttered under his breath with quiet conviction, “anything you want, I’ll do for you.”

 _Ash_. Over seven years had passed since that first kiss, but even now, all Eiji had to do was close his eyes and there it was like yesterday…Ash’s green irises, the touch of his hand in his hair, the scent of his skin, the warmth of his lips, his tongue in his mouth. _Ash. Stay. Be with me_. Eiji opened his eyes, suddenly aware that he was whimpering in his room. Across the hallway, Ibe-san’s visiting niece Akira was sleeping in the guest room, hopefully dead to the world from jetlag and not hearing Eiji’s pathetic moans. _If only we had been born under the same moon_ , Eiji thought as he stared blindly at the ceiling, the past wrapped around him like a shroud, _then I would have kept you safe_. But Eiji had been born at dusk, and Ash at dawn, so there it was. The moon would never catch more than a glimpse of the rising sun. _All those times you cried in your sleep, I should have held you, embraced you, let you know you were not alone._ And now, there was no one to hold Eiji as he shed his tears, a bottomless fount of tears that rose up every night to spill onto his pillow. It was only right for all things to remain in balance. Nature demanded it. All those tears that Ash had shed in the bed next to Eiji in that fancy apartment across from Golzine’s offices, and all the tears shed before Eiji had even met Ash, it was Eiji’s turn now. He would match them, tear for tear, every drop offered on the altar of his aching heart until the scales were even.

The sorrow would always lift and dissipate with the rising sun, as if it were a mist evaporated by the rays of morning light. Eiji liked to think that it was Ash smiling down at him with each dawn, perhaps speaking a word or two audible only to angels, his breath a gentle breeze sweeping aside his grief for the day. And today was a busy day indeed. He would be interviewed at the gallery ahead of his exhibition and begin selecting the photographs to include in the show. He would have Aki-chan to entertain, dinner to cook for her and Sing, who was supposed to have a meeting at a posh French restaurant, but…he knew Sing better than that by now. The young man practically lived at Eiji’s apartment, even though he owned a huge house on Long Island, he was his de facto roommate ever since Eiji had returned to New York. No words were ever spoken, but Eiji knew that Sing carried the guilt of Lao’s actions right down to his bones, so how could he push him away when they were both still bleeding inside?

***

Shorter was standing in the doorway of the bedroom watching his sister Nadia bang her boyfriend Charlie and dry heaving at the sight before him. He couldn’t decide if the nausea was due to the fact that Charlie was a cop, which was bad enough, or because Charlie was a redhead, which was probably even worse. Shorter had a morbid dislike of redheads, having seen the movie _Chucky_ when he was five years old and then dreaming that very same night that one of his sister’s dolls, a doll with long wavy red hair that Nadia like to brush and braid, had come alive and cut off his dick. Though he was a mere child at the time and his dick didn’t exactly do a whole lot, it seemed like a vital organ nevertheless and the dream, no, _nightmare_ had fairly traumatized him for life and even into death.

“In another minute, she’s going to fake an orgasm,” came a droll voice behind Shorter.

He quickly snapped his head around and grimaced at the sharp twinge in his neck. “For fuck’s sake, don’t sneak up on me like that!” Shorter rubbed at his nape, trying to work the muscle spasm loose. He’d already blown all his cash at the poker table to little Skip, who had beaten his pants off six different ways and now he’d need to borrow money if he wanted ten minutes at the massage parlor.

“I wasn’t sneaking,” Ash said in his own defense. “You were too busy perving over your sister to hear me come in.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the doorjamb, not really enjoying the awkward movements on the bed. In fact, it was kind of like watching a car accident.

Accident or not, Shorter wasn't having any of it. “Hey, speaking of sisters, don’t be looking at mine. Go get your own.”

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?” scowled Ash.

“Goddamn it, quit looking!”

“Fine.” Ash turned and faced the other way. Sure enough, Nadia’s moans hitched up an octave and quickened. It was almost eleven-thirty and she needed Charlie to finish ASAP so she could go downstairs and open up the restaurant for lunch. 

Shorter grunted in disgust, grabbed Ash by the arm and pulled them down the hallway and out the fire escape. “I don’t know man. I don’t think Charlie’s right for her,” Shorter grumbled, brows furrowed in worry. If this went on, his sister just might end up marrying the guy. 

“Right. The perennial cop vs red hair dilemma. Just let it go, Shorter. Nadia’s not stupid. If she likes him, she likes him. And if she’s willing to fake her orgasms for him, then she’s probably going to keep him.”

That was exactly the kind of pragmatic reasoning that Ash was always dishing out and it drove Shorter up the wall. “Christ, if only he weren’t a ginger…or an NYPD pig.”

“C’mon, cut him a break. He’s better than most of them.” Ash put his right arm around his friend’s shoulder—something he would have never done in life; he always kept his trigger hand at his own side, just in case, but there was no need for guns or switchblades anymore in the afterlife—and gave a playful tug on the purple mohawk. “Let’s say we lose this dead cat that’s been sitting on your head.”

“Wha-? No way! It’s my look.” He swatted Ash’s hand away and then lovingly ran his fingers through the thick strands. “Eiji never complained about it. In fact, he thought it was pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Ash grinned, “Ei-chan also thought that pink satin jacket was cool. Jesus Christ, that baby…I can’t believe he didn’t get the shit kicked out of him walking around like that in Chinatown.” 

“We Chinese are more fashion forward than you white boys,” Shorter explained. “Flannel and hoodies…BORING.”

They wove their way through the crowds of people thronging Canal Street and turned onto Lafayette to head north, and then Ash said, “I’ve never seen Eiji in a kimono. Do Japanese boys wear kimonos?”

“Of course,” Shorter nodded. “Haven’t you ever seen _The Seven Samurai_?”

“No. Didn’t have much time for movies or TV.”

“Sheesh. All work and no play make Ash a dull boy.”

“I would’ve taken dull any day. Hey, let’s go check out that gallery. All we have to do is cut over to Broadway. I think they might start hanging the show today.”

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Shorter ventured carefully. “Eiji will be there, you know.”

“I know,” Ash replied, his voice low, somber. “I want to see him.”

Sing would be there, too, most likely, and although Shorter had refrained from pointing that out, Ash knew that Sing’s presence was the real reason behind his concern. Ash was well aware of the guilt that Shorter bore regarding Sing, who had been a loyal and eager lieutenant when Shorter was leading the Chinatown gang. Everything seemed to loop back to Sing for some reason and it was unfair to lay blame on the kid, a mere fourteen years old—thin and scrawny and full of piss and vinegar—when Shorter was killed by Ash himself, but who fearlessly took on the responsibility of “boss” in the vacuum left by Shorter’s death. The boy had even stood up to Yut-Lung, stood up to all the Lees, which was more than even Shorter had done. Young though he was, Sing had been undeniably brave, perceptive, tenacious if not a little stubborn and reckless. Now at twenty-three and no longer an adolescent, he was still all those things, except he had also grown tall, muscular, sexy hot. And…it was Sing who was always by Eiji’s side. Sing. Not Ash.

It would have been a lie for Ash to say it didn’t hurt. He had always believed that he and Eiji were soulmates, that all they needed was each other; Ash was the sun to Eiji’s moon, casting his light on him, making him shine in the night sky like a jewel hung amidst the stars. When he chose to let Eiji go, he didn’t consider the possibility that someone else might take his place, light up his beloved as he had done in life, as if Eiji’s suffering were rightful consolation to him. It wasn’t, though, was it? Eiji’s suffering was just that: the moon’s glory snuffed out, a barren desolate orb caught in the cold, cold firmament, pale and ghostly with grief. It wasn’t right. _I did this to you, Ei-chan. I’m so sorry._ So it was with determination that Ash swallowed his own fear of losing Eiji to another because he would rather Eiji find happiness, even if it tore his own heart out of his chest. He was dead and Eiji was alive, thank god. _Sing_ was alive and living on the same plane of existence as his beautiful, sweet, innocent Ei-chan. What was jealousy except his own regret come back to bite him? No, he would go to the gallery, jealousy be damned. Though he could no longer hold Eiji in his arms and feel the warmth of him beneath his palms, measure his heartbeat through his fingertips and know that they were in sync, he could still _see_ him and let his eyes caress what his hands could not. And should he happen to witness what he feared most—a tender glance shared between Eiji and Sing, a not-so-accidental touch—then, surely, his tears would leave him mercifully blind.

_______

 

I was researching some music for another fic I am currently writing and I stumbled upon this old song from the movie soundtrack for _Saturday Night Fever_ that made me almost die. It's from my mom's era, but the lyrics made me think of Ash and his sweet cinnamon roll Eiji. Check it out: [Bee Gees, How Deep Is Your Love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJMF8R5NDoA)

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Episode 18 of the anime just aired, so here’s another chapter. If you are anime-only and haven’t seen Episode 18 yet, then don’t read this chapter until after you view it since this contains SPOILERS. 
> 
> I thought this might be the right place to delve into Yut-Lung in this fic since he plays such a pivotal role in what happens to Ash and Eiji. We’ve already gotten a fairly good dose of his personality and motivations in previous episodes of the anime, but in Episode 18 we’re seeing just how sly he is and how well he reads Ash (to an extent). He knows that the only way to get to Ash is through his Achilles’ heel, Eiji, unlike Papa Dino, whose previous efforts to capture and cage his lynx directly has failed time and again. Pretty hilarious.

 

Yut-Lung almost shit his pants at least three times that night, but it wasn’t from fear; it was from furious indignation. When Ash put the gun to his own head in the warehouse and pulled the trigger without a moment’s hesitation, Yut-Lung thought his entire body would explode in a super nova of seething fleshy bits. Then Ash had the gall to ask for a bullet and all Yut-Lung could do was slap the gun out of Ash’s hand in a fit of jealous despair. Ash calling him a “little girl” didn’t make a dent in his ego. No. It was the fact that Ash was so willing to sacrifice himself just to ensure Eiji’s safety that made Yut-Lung want to spew his guts to all four corners of the universe. Ash was willing to throw everything away—all the effort that went into unraveling the secret of Banana Fish, custody of Professor Dawson, revenge for his brother Griffin, his friends, his freedom, his very own _life_ —all for that good-for-nothing, pain-in-the-ass, baby-faced _thorn_ in Yut-Lung’s side! God, how he wanted to wring Eiji’s neck like a farmer strangling a chicken, squeeze his hands around his throat until his big brown eyes popped out of his thick-as-a-brick skull. In Yut-Lung’s estimation, Eiji was a fucking bonehead, utterly useless and barely capable of wiping his own ass, unlike himself, who had servants to do that kind of stuff. The seventh son of the Lee clan was cultured, elegant, educated, as deadly as the most poisonous viper and oh so lovely in an embroidered silk changshan, the _ne plus ultra_ of four thousand years of Chinese sophistication and badassery. That Ash would choose Eiji over a sublime specimen as himself was just incomprehensible. He wouldn’t stand for it! He may be mistaken for a girl left and right, and he may have let his douchebag brothers peddle his tight little ass like the cheapest whore, but he still had his pride. Beneath that dress was a pair of teenaged balls growing bigger and heavier by the second, and they were made of iron, goddamn it!

It all backfired, though, just like his previous attempt to soil Eiji’s purity had failed. Eiji had managed to wriggle his way out of Yut-Lung’s condo, breaking the window and then using Yut-Lung as hostage, after seeing the news reports of Ash’s untimely death at some mysterious health facility—as if anyone would believe that doozy of a lie—and Yut-Lung had stood defiant with a bull's-eye painted on his chest while Eiji waved a pistol at him on the sidewalk. “Go ahead, shoot me.” Well, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. No matter how Yut-Lung prodded him, Eiji wouldn’t pull the trigger. That insufferable choir boy had refused to dirty his hands even for Ash, Ash who had put his own life on the line for Eiji over and over. If it were the other way around, Yut-Lung would have shot Eiji dead a thousand times over and then dragged his mangled, holey-as-Swiss-cheese body to Ash as a gift offering. For Ash, Yut-Lung would have done anything; he could have been the fire breathing dragon to his fearsome tiger, they could have rained chaos upon the world. 

But that was water under the bridge as they say. The ensuing years had softened the pain of rejection, because that’s what it was, wasn’t it? Rejection? Unrequited love? And what could hurt worse than that at sixteen? To see your equal in tragedy, in suffering, in survival…it was like looking into the mirror and finding the yin to your yang. It was like falling in love with yourself, except…Yut-Lung’s yang wasn’t giving his yin any love whatsoever. Ash was letting that dumbass Eiji Okumura approach him without lashing out, like a lynx befriending a rabbit instead of ripping it to shreds. A lynx high-fiving a rabbit. What a sick joke! Life was so unfair! In a fit of teen stupidity, Yut-Lung had gone so far as to slip Ash a key so he could escape Golzine’s execution chamber and save his darling Eiji by going full-on Rambo on Papa Dino's goons. What did Yut-Lung get in return? Not an ounce of gratitude. There was no acknowledgement, no thank you, no “How about I drill you nice and deep since you helped me out?” from Ash. Instead, Ash repaid him by calling him offensive names or brushed him aside like an insect, and that night in the warehouse, Ash had quickly agreed to everything Yut-Lung had demanded without even putting up a fight. He was more interested in tussling _mano a mano_ with his sensei Blanca than agonizing over what Yut-Lung had brilliantly masterminded to bring him to heel. Un-fucking-believable.

Well, screw the past. He was twenty-five now, no longer a slave to his raging hormones, king of the trash heap in Chinatown and soon to be ensconced full-time in Hong Kong where he would be the shining figurehead of the Lee syndicate, second only in power to that other long-haired beauty in a changshan, Liu Fei-Long of the Báishé syndicate, a man with his own unfortunate Daddy/Big Brother issues. He would leave New York to Sing, who had proven to be a more than capable boss. Sing had been a handful, defying Yut-Lung outright at times when he had sided with Ash, but he was as sharp and lethal as his weapon of choice and too valuable to simply off like so many other gang members. No, Sing was a keeper, and now that Yut-Lung’s green-eyed nemesis was gone, Sing was his to call back into the fold. 

There was cold comfort to be had in other ways. Ash had been dead seven years, and in those seven years Eiji had never found anyone to replace Ash. Not that he had ever _looked_ , but Eiji was still nursing a broken heart and it made the hole in Yut-Lung’s own heart feel a little smaller. Eiji’s suffering gave him the same satisfaction he had felt when he had systematically eliminated his older brothers and all their wives and children, using Golzine’s men as his sword of retribution, repayment for the countless humiliations his brothers had heaped upon him, for the violent death they had visited upon his mother too, her only crime that of being the youngest and prettiest of his father’s many concubines. Yut-Lung had been used and abused as Ash had been, and though their paths had veered in different directions later on, they had shared the misery of stolen childhood. That had _meant_ something to Yut-Lung—it was a violation to be nurtured, not forgotten, a reason to hate and seek revenge, a demon to feed and unleash—but Ash didn’t see it that way. The bastard, wild beast that he was, believed in love and loyalty and friendship with a boy who didn’t even merit it, didn’t even _earn_ it with a body groped and penetrated by disgusting perverts, with a soul dragged through hell and back. _You could have had me by your side but you fell for that silly boy instead._ No matter. He couldn’t have Ash, but neither could Eiji, so the resentment and jealousy had waned. Eiji stood no threat to his wounded pride any longer. It was Sing, not Yut-Lung, who struggled to move forward, imprisoned by his own guilt.

“I bear some responsibility…for the obligation you feel towards him,” admitted Yut-Lung. It was cruel to tease Sing about his very obvious and unrelenting fan-boying over Ash, and his subsequent devotion to Eiji (so terribly misplaced in Yut-Lung’s opinion), but he meant it with affection, or whatever might be considered affection for a cold-blooded snake. He was on the phone with Sing, who was at Eiji’s apartment like the faithful watchdog he was, and probably masturbating to the sight of Word documents on Ash’s old computer. “I don’t intend to interfere in your private life,” Yut-Lung told Sing. “Just one piece of advice, though, and I say this as your friend: don’t fight your memories, because you’re never going to win. Say hi to Ash for me.”

The truth was, there was never any means to win against Ash. How do you win against someone who gave it all away? Ash could have had everything: wealth, power, any man or woman he desired. But he didn’t want any of it, because all of it came with strings attached, with bars that would cage him in. What Ash wanted was just one thing: the love of a pure, honest, sincere boy who asked for nothing in return, an unconditional love that could set him free. Yut-Lung had realized at the very start that he could never be that person. He wasn’t pure, honest, or sincere, but Eiji was all those things, and Sing…would Sing ever find his way to forgiveness?

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are also in the Finder no Hyouteki fandom, yes, that is THE Fei-Long that I mention in this chapter. I'm just indulging myself. Forgive me.


	5. Chapter 5

Sing put his phone down, annoyed. All his dealings with Yut-Lung left him feeling annoyed to some degree. The guy was a snake, always was, although he had become less reptilian after Ash had died, perhaps more human, or humanoid? Sing had met Yut-Lung for the first time the very same night he had met Ash in person. He had gathered his boys, including his half-brother Lao, and together with Ash’s gang they were going to bust into Dino Golzine’s mansion in North Caldwell, NJ and rescue their boss Shorter, who was being held prisoner along with Ash. Things were going like gangbusters; the way they were picking off Golzine’s men…it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Unfortunately, no celebration was to follow because one of Dino’s guards revealed that Shorter was dead and, not only dead, but killed by none other than Ash Lynx. Sing didn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it until he saw for himself because he _knew_ how tight his beloved boss was with Ash. It couldn’t be…there had to be more to it.

It was the fire that drew Sing’s attention. There was a muffled explosion, then flames and black smoke billowing into the night sky. Sing ran back inside Golzine’s mansion and found his way to what appeared to be a meth lab of some sort and there he was, the White Devil himself standing amidst the flames, hair disheveled, shirt torn, face bloodied, body bruised, eyes wild…wild…insane. The sheer frightening beauty of him was enough to make Sing cream his pants.

Ash pinned him with an icy glare, rasped a guttural growl, “I’m having a bad day.”

Well, that was the understatement of the century, but the flames and the smoke and the devil’s words weren’t enough to obscure the sight of the desecrated corpse lying on the table, quickly burning to a crisp. It was Shorter and Sing couldn’t leave his boss there unavenged. “I’m Sing Soo-Ling,” he snarled like the brash, cocky fourteen-year-old punk that he was, “and if you killed Shorter, then I’m here to collect.”

“Come back in ten years, kid,” was Ash’s monotone reply, a slap in the face if there ever was one.

 _In your dreams, motherfucker!_ Sing flung out his right hand and unleashed his signature weapon—the deadly Flying Dragon Fang—and promptly found himself kissing the butt of Ash’s submachine gun, then flat on his back on the floor, Ash fucking him up the ass with his own arrogance. It may have been the most humiliating moment of Sing’s young life, way more humiliating than his mom catching him jacking off in the bathroom, and he knew it. Sing hadn’t met his match; he had met a man he could never hope to equal, much less surpass. He could only admit defeat in the face of such awesomeness.

“Do it,” Sing muttered when Ash pointed the barrel of his gun at his head, but all Ash did was turn his back on him. 

“Scram, kid,” he said. It was an overt dismissal, a lion not even deigning to kill a mouse.

A slew of invectives and vaunting threats tumbled from Sing’s mouth as he picked himself off the floor. It was all verbal diarrhea to Ash, though, who proceeded to stand watch over Shorter’s cremation, a demigod sending a compatriot into the afterlife with proper dignity. Compared to that display of alpha dominance, Yut-Lung’s sudden appearance outside the compound was anticlimactic at best. “Who the hell are you?” Sing didn’t know him from Adam, and the fact that Yut-Lung was from the Lee clan didn’t garner any respect from Sing, who ended up riding in the helicopter with the epicene weirdo. Sing was loyal to Shorter Wong, not the Lees, a bunch of old school fuddy-duddies, an ancient breed of scum on their way out, dinosaurs who never adapted to the changing times. But Shorter was gone, really gone, and Yut-Lung was offering Sing an olive branch. It didn’t seem like such a bad deal at the time.

It wasn’t until Sing accidentally caught a glimpse of Hua-Lung, the second eldest Lee son, that he began to understand what Yut-Lung was really capable of doing, the dark depths he was willing to plumb. Lee Hua-Lung, a man once smug and virile, had been reduced to a drooling, brain dead shell of himself, completely helpless and at the mercy of his youngest brother Yut-Lung, who had stolen the remaining sample of Banana Fish from Dino Golzine’s compound and used it on him. Wow. Like, fucking wow. And the way that Yut-Lung had laughed when Sing stared in horror as realization dawned, that was like double fucking wow.

So, yeah, Yut-Lung was a freaking lunatic and Sing didn’t feel all that bad. The Lees could all fuck off and die as far as he was concerned. He asked Yut-Lung time and again to tell him why Ash had killed Shorter, but Yut-Lung always spoke in riddles. It wasn’t until he finally met Eiji that Sing began to piece together what had really happened between Ash and Shorter. The truth. It was Eiji who told him the truth. Not Yut-Lung or even Ash. It was Eiji, the seemingly clueless boy from Japan. He didn’t think much of Eiji when he first met him. They were both released on bail at the station after Ash’s fight with Arthur atop the Coney Island subway tracks. What had surprised Sing was Eiji saying he was Ash’s friend. Seriously? _This_ boy was a friend of Ash Lynx? No way! But friend he was to Ash indeed, and to Shorter, too, it turned out. Eiji told him everything—with honesty and empathy—after he escaped Yut-Lung’s clutches and Sing had brought him to one of his gang’s hangouts to talk in safety. Like Sing, Shorter’s death had hurt Eiji to the core, and from that moment on Sing’s eyes were opened; he saw what Ash saw in Eiji: a pure-hearted soul. 

There was more to it, of course. Ash was a fine boss. His boys respected him, trusted him, feared him, too, but he was aloof, businesslike, serious and, when it came time to wake him, he was a terrifying force to be reckoned with. But in Eiji’s presence, Ash was a different person. The wall that surrounded Ash would disappear. He and Shorter had been as close as any two gang leaders could be without being lovers, but even Shorter had never gotten as close to Ash as Eiji did. Eiji was under Ash’s skin. Even Alex, Ash’s lieutenant, and the rest of Ash’s gang confirmed what Sing suspected: Ash and Eiji were in love. The multimillion dollar luxury condo that Ash purchased with funds stolen from Dino’s bank account—ostensibly so he could spy on the comings and goings of Dino’s associates—was really just Ash behaving like a young husband intent on keeping his new bride safe and by his side. They slept in the same bedroom, ate their meals together, Eiji cooking for Ash and Ash eating whatever Eiji prepared for him, no matter how bizarre. Even the trauma of eating natto didn’t put him off. Ash gave Eiji the task of taking the photographs. He could have had any of his gang members do that for him, but he had Eiji do it just so he could feel useful. No one complained, though. Why should they? They were busy fighting Arthur’s boys and trying to stay alive, and Eiji had a calming effect on their boss. Even when the two argued, they would make up and all would be well. All _was_ well until Ash tried to send Eiji back to Japan. He didn’t want Eiji to see him fight Arthur and perhaps be killed. Eiji saw the fight anyway, saw Ash kill Arthur, but it only made their bond stronger.

Sing had seen them embrace after Ash had escaped capture by Col. Foxx, and then seen them kiss when they were on the run again, moving from safe house to safe house as Foxx and his mercenaries pursued them relentlessly, slaughtering Ash’s boys, Sing’s boys, Cain’s boys, it didn’t matter, those French goons were ruthless. But there’s nothing like death breathing down one’s neck to make one take comfort in life, and what shouted _life_ and _fuck death_ more than merging with a loved one? Sing had gone to the room in which Ash had his computer, hoping to discuss their latest move, when he saw them through the crack in the door. Eiji was in the room with Ash and they were locked in an embrace, sharing kisses that were slow, deep, sloppy with youthful passion—arms wrapped around each other, their mouths breaking apart only to gasp the other’s name: “Ash…Ash…”, “Eiji…Eiji…” And for some reason, it made Sing want to cry.

Seven years later, he could hear Eiji moaning Ash’s name whenever he stayed overnight at Eiji’s apartment, which was most nights, and the reason Yut-Lung accused him of “camping out.” He could hear Eiji right now even though little Akira was in the room across the hallway: “Ash…Ash…” Was Eiji awake or was he dreaming? What did he see in his mind’s eye? Did he see what Sing imagined: Ash naked and pressed against Eiji, Eiji’s legs wrapped high around his waist, the steady rise and fall of Ash’s hips as he pushed in and out, Eiji’s nails digging into Ash’s back leaving a trail of raised red welts as he said in breathy pants, “Aishiteru...aishiteru…” Sing reached down and gripped the hard length of his cock in his hand and bit his lip to keep from groaning as he stroked himself. How many times had he wanted to creep into Eiji’s room and slip into bed beside him? Would he have the guts to say, “Just close your eyes, Eiji, and pretend I’m him. Let me do this for you. Let me give you what I took away.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had read somewhere that the mangaka had wanted to include some sexy times for Ash x Eiji but just couldn’t find the right place in the story for it. I would have loved for Yoshida to have done that, but I guess that’s our job as fans to fill in the gaps.


	6. Chapter 6

When the cops accused, “Did you seduce him?”

When his father said, “The next time a man wants you, at least ask him to pay for it.”

When Dino picked him off the street and sold him nightly to the most reprehensible perverts, called him a whore, then made him his son.

If his soul were a house, then he would close the door and keep it locked forever. No one could hurt him if he felt nothing. No matter how many men shoved their cocks inside him, used him as a living toilet in which to deposit their semen, they couldn’t touch his _soul_ , couldn’t break his _heart_. Ash deadened himself to it all and the numbness enabled him to survive the worst filth, to thrive even in a world of abject degradation. He could kill without hesitation, be a blunt instrument of destruction if the situation called for it. Papa Dino had groomed him to be his successor. He had brought in the finest assassin, Blanca, to train and mentor Ash, hired other specialists to teach him how to appreciate the finer things in life: wine, literature, music. Yes, it’s true that Dino had prostituted him at first, but it hadn’t been for long, sexually at least. The old man was greedy and he wanted his most exquisite possession for himself in the bedroom. For that, Ash was almost thankful. Later on, Dino had tried to prostitute his brains, but a merciful lapse into insanity had taken care of _that_.

The idea that he could ever feel anything remotely like romantic love…it seemed impossible, incomprehensible to Ash. Sure, he loved his brother Griffin, he loved little Skip, he loved his best bro Shorter—all of them dead too soon—but that was a different kind of love, fraternal and safe, the kind of love that didn’t involve his heart skipping a beat and then the brain in his balls sending signals to his cock. The closest he had come to romantic love, the kind in which “attraction” was central, was when he was fourteen and he had liked this particular girl his own age. Perhaps it was no more than an ordinary teenage crush, but it may have become something else, something deeper and desirous if the girl hadn’t been murdered just because Ash was interested in her. That incident really put the kibosh on romance for Ash. He wasn’t afraid of his own death—sometimes he yearned for it—but he didn’t want potential girlfriends dying _because_ of him; he couldn’t live with their ghosts rattling around in his head and it made for the lousiest spank bank material. So, no girlfriends even though plenty of girls were eager to hook up with a powerful gang boss. It was always just the shower, a bar of soap, and his right hand. “My wife,” Ash would joke sardonically to his soapy fist each time he jacked it alone under the hot spray. “Everyone needs a good wife.”

Wife or no wife, loneliness was easier to push aside when danger lurked around every corner in a very literal sense. His boys relied on him, looked to him to guide them, lead them. Being the alpha male took every ounce of focus and energy and if this was the only way to retain some semblance of freedom, then he would do it. He prided himself on anticipating everything, be it threat or advantage, friend or foe, he never ever erred in his instincts. After Dino turned him loose onto the streets of Lower Manhattan, Ash made it his own, carved out his territory like a tiger prowling the jungle. He didn’t seek out trouble, though trouble always seemed to find him. He wanted nothing more than to be left alone, even as “boss.” At his core he was a solitary animal, but his undeniable beauty was a magnet drawing in all sorts of things, things harbored in the dirty depths of predatory men, men drunk on power and the wielding of it without consequence. So be it. Ash was clever and cunning and he knew how to use his beauty as a weapon, and though he had been violated countless times, he could shut it all off—his feelings, his humanity—and continue to _live_.

So, how was it that some part of himself had remained untainted and still thrumming with _need_ , with the ability to recognize…that perfect soul, his one and only? When had that moment of realization dawned on him? Was it when he had seen Eiji soar through the sky, silhouetted against the heavens like an angel in flight? Was it when he had first kissed him and the soft press of his warm lips against his own had stirred his desire to _trust_ him? Was it when Eiji had told him in all seriousness that he would stand by him even if the whole world had turned against him? Was it when Eiji embraced him time and again, wrapped his arms around him _first_ because he was so fearless in his honesty?

“May I hold your gun?”

Perhaps it had started as far back as that innocent question asked with sincere respect for a stranger. No one had ever shown him such sweet deference, given him the _choice_ to say yes or no, not until this Eiji Okumura had turned up at his hangout and opened his eyes to another world, a world where people had the capacity for goodness, kindness, compassion, friendship, _love_. At times they had argued and snarked and teased like an old married couple pushing each other's buttons. He’d told Eiji at least once or twice that he’d make someone a good wife one day. _Yeah, MY wife, heh_. Eiji was a good cook—as long as he wasn’t trying to make him eat that foul natto or those horrible tofu sandwiches—but he wasn’t _just_ a good cook. He was an intrepid alarm clock, forcing him out of bed and into the shower if he slept past noon. Isn’t that what a good wife would do for a husband? Ash had never been a morning person. He kept late hours, taking care of “business” when most of the city was asleep. Shooting someone in broad daylight was never a smart thing to do, and Ash was smart, had been, at least. Eiji questioned him—his conscience, his ethics—without ever judging him. He teased him over his fear of pumpkins, fought with him over his belief that fate could not be changed, assured him that he was wanted and loved by a mother he never knew. Eiji took a bullet for him, saved him from one of many attacks on his life, and now…well…Eiji had remained a virgin for him, a testament to his unwavering faithfulness and loyalty to a man long dead. The love, though, the love had never died. 

***

“So, why’d you never do it with him?” asked Shorter. “You know he wanted you.” They sat on the floor, their backs resting against a wall in a far corner of the gallery as they watched the bustling activity around them. Not more than fifteen feet away, Eiji was seated across from a young journalist from _The Village Voice_ who was interviewing him for an article. Sing was there, too, also watching, along with Michael, Max and Jessica’s son, and a teenaged girl that Ash didn’t recognize. They could hear snippets of what was being said amidst the sounds of power drills whirring and partitions being moved into place.

“I know,” Ash replied, spellbound by the sight of Eiji sitting so upright, his longish ebony hair tied back, his hands gesturing gracefully as he spoke to the journalist, the sound of his quiet voice, deeper than it had been when they had first met, the pensive look on his face. “I wanted him, too. I just…I couldn’t.”

Shorter put his hand on Ash’s shoulder, squeezed it firmly. “It wouldn’t have been dirty with him, Ash.”

Eiji looked right in Ash’s direction just then, pausing briefly before he went on answering questions, and Ash exhaled, his heart thumping wildly in his chest. Had he been holding his breath? “It wouldn’t have dirtied _me_ …but it would have dirtied Eiji.” That…wasn’t true but, at the time, Ash didn’t have the courage to find out. So many men had touched him, pawed at him, entered him without permission. How could he ever be with Eiji—naked, vulnerable, his soul bared—without Eiji seeing the filth inside him? It wasn’t something that could ever be washed clean, that kind of filth, and he couldn’t bear the thought of contaminating Eiji with such deplorable shit. Of course he had _wanted_ him! He may have been broken, ruined, used up, but he was still human, he still had _feelings_ , so many fucking feelings that could not be let out or else...

“I didn’t want to defile him,” is what he told Shorter in all honesty. “I loved him too much for that.”

“Yeah,” Shorter murmured, melancholy setting in. “I know what you mean.” And he did. He understood Ash’s predicament. There was something about Eiji that had made Shorter want to protect the boy. After Yut-Lung had forced him into betraying Ash by threatening the life of his sister Nadia, he swore to himself that he would keep Eiji safe for Ash, and if push came to shove, he would kill them both to prevent Eiji from falling into Dino’s hands for torture. It all went ass-up in the end on so many levels, but at least Ash and Eiji had made it out of Dino’s mansion alive. Ash took care of him, too, did the kind thing by shooting him dead before he could plunge the knife into Eiji’s neck, and Ash paid the price down the road for it. Was that karma? If so, he wished karma would go fuck itself.

The interview ended. Eiji shook hands with the journalist and then Sing was immediately by his side, his face split with a wide grin as he threw a muscular arm about Eiji’s shoulders, his other hand patting Eiji affectionately on the chest. Shorter dared a furtive glance at Ash still sitting beside him in uncomfortable silence. “Heh…” Shorter half-chuckled, hoping to defuse a bomb when he had no fucking training in how to defuse a bomb, “just bros being bros, man. It’s kinda sweet…the way they…uh…shit…” Sing had both arms looped around Eiji’s shoulders now and Eiji was returning the smile within the circle of those thick arms and Shorter could swear the air had dipped below freezing suddenly. “Damn. They sure have the AC cranked up in here, don’t they…Ash?” He turned and looked directly at Ash, who was gazing at Sing with the intensity of an apex predator ready to rip into his prey. Fortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot of damage Ash could inflict on Sing—none in fact—but he, Shorter Wong, would have to bear the brunt of a major conniption and that was not going to be fun. “Listen, man, don’t torture yourself like—” 

“I. Like. Torture,” Ash gritted out between clenched teeth. He hadn’t moved—was still sitting with his knees pulled up and his elbows resting on them—but his hands had tightened into fists.

“Ash—”

“Must. Kill.”

Then, miracle of miracles, the unknown teenaged girl ran up to Sing and pulled him aside and started pestering him excitedly. They stood so close to where they were sitting, Shorter could have reached out and touched her sneakers.

“That person was a man, wasn’t he?" the girl demanded loudly of Sing. "The person you said had blond hair and green eyes and was so beautiful you could hardly believe it? The person you said Okumura-san loved so much? Ash was a _man_?”

“Shhh! Jesus Christ, Akira. Keep it down!” Sing turned the girl towards the wall and practically in Ash’s face. Eiji was talking to one of the gallery workers on the far side of the room and paying them no attention, but Sing continued to keep his voice at a very irritated whisper. “Where’d you hear that from anyway?”

“Michael. He told me Ash was his hero.” 

Shorter shot Ash a mocking look, snorting with glee, and received an elbow in the ribs from Ash, who was staring with less murderous intent at the two conversing in front of them. Well, well, well.

The girl named Akira went on, undeterred and unintimidated by Sing’s six-foot-three boxer's build and glowering expression. “Was this Ash person Okumura-san’s…lover?”

There was a soft sound beside Shorter. He turned his head to see Ash place a hand over his mouth to muffle a gasp, his eyes wide and a little bewildered, as if he were on the cusp of witnessing a revelation. This was way better than any of those crazy Korean soap operas, thought Shorter, who listened intently at what Sing could possibly say in response. Would he beat around the bush? Lie outright? Or tell the truth?

“He was more than that,” Sing replied, his voice ragged and suffused with regret. “Which doesn’t mean their relationship was sexual,” he quickly added, “because it wasn’t.”

“How would _you_ know?!” Ash protested.

Shorter returned the elbow in the ribs. “Just shut up and listen, will ya?”

“But they did love each other,” Sing conceded, “maybe the way lovers do. They were…connected to each other, soul to soul.”

“Aw… _fuuuck_.” Shorter wiped a real tear from his eye and sniffled. “Shit, dude, look at me. I’m just a hot mess. Wasn’t that—” Ash had turned to face the other way, his forehead resting against the wall. The sharp trembling of his shoulders told Shorter everything he needed to know. “Hey. It’s okay.” He folded up against his friend and cradled him in the warm curve of his chest, let the tremors roll through Ash’s body and into his own, where he would gather up the pieces and put them back together again.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before Episode 19 (Ice Palace) of the anime aired, I re-read the chapters of the manga just to prepare myself because I knew it was going to be highly emotional if Mappa Studio stayed true to the subject matter. Then I watched the anime episode and it wrecked me so badly I wasn’t able to write anything for Banana Fish for days. I wouldn’t say that it was the WORST of what happens in the manga, but Ash’s seiyu captured all the anguish of an impossible situation and it was just devastating.


	7. Chapter 7

 

It had been a long, busy day at the gallery and Eiji was glad to be home finally, standing in his kitchen frying shrimp tempura while, next to him, Sing prepared the salad of greens, cucumber, and shredded carrots. The ten-cup Zojirushi electric rice cooker (which replaced the four-cup model after Sing moved in) was steaming away on the counter as Buddy, Eiji’s yellow Labrador—found as a tiny stray puppy in the trash and now grown into a seventy-five-pound quadrupedal doormat with a wagging tail—lay sprawled on the dining room floor, ready for handouts under the table. Akira was soaking in the bath before dinner and they could both hear her girlie teen voice echoing against the tiles as she sang the Japanese version of SHINee’s hit _Lucifer_. It added a new and amusing layer to their comfortable domesticity.

“Those Koreans are going to take over the world with all that K-Pop,” joked Sing as he peeled and seeded the cucumber. “Shit, you should see Yut-Lung doing T’ai chi to TVXQ during his morning workouts. That guy is _such_ a freak.”

“Which song?” asked Eiji, surprised by his own curiosity, a sweet memory taking hold of him. Ash and the gang had taken him to a dance club once during a rare period of relative peace when Dino was out of the country to answer directly to the Union Corse for the sudden disappearance of millions of dollars which Ash had stolen. It was the first and only time Ash had agreed to such an indulgence, a night of fun and drinking and Eiji blushed now to recall how badly he had wanted to kiss Ash right on the dance floor, the music pounding through the sound system and through his bones, the scent and heat of Ash’s skin when they danced close, their bodies bumping and grinding to the thudding bass. The memory of it was so special, not even the vision of Yut-Lung shaking his booty in slow motion could ruin it.

The knife stilled on the cutting board as Sing scrunched his face up in thought, then blurted out, “ _Purple Line_!”

They both burst out laughing, doubled over with delight. “I can just see him rapping Yunho’s lines,” Eiji giggled as he mimicked the Korean star’s nasal twang: “ _Yo check it!_ ” 

“No, no, no,” Sing insisted, tears of mirth dotting his eyes, pitching his voice three octaves higher and softer as he put on his best Yut-Lung-as-Yoochun imitation: “ _I really wanna touch myself_.”

That prompted another round of raucous laughter before Eiji reached into his back pocket for a handkerchief to wipe his eyes and felt the crinkle of paper instead. Ah. He took the folded sheet of paper out of his pocket and laid it on the countertop, flattening it carefully for Sing to examine. “Is this what you and Aki-chan were arguing about this afternoon?” asked Eiji.

The laughter died in Sing’s throat. “Where did you get that?” asked Sing, his face burning up.

It was a drawing by Akira—childish and adorable in its crudeness—of a girl with long blond hair and sparkling eyes and the name “Ash” written on either side of the figure in a dress.

Eiji casually flipped the shrimp over in the oil. “Michael showed it to me. He said that Aki-chan was under the impression that Ash was a girl. I never said anything to her about Ash.” When Sing remained silent, chopping the cucumber into smaller and smaller pieces, Eiji prodded gently, “Did you…did you tell her about Ash…and me?”

Sing put down the knife with an angry exhale of breath. “It wasn’t my fault. She had looked through your photo albums the other day and noticed that there were pictures missing, all of them with the initial ‘A’ in the caption and…she’s a smart girl. She asked me a bunch of questions. What was I supposed to do? Lie to her?”

“No,” Eiji replied quietly. “I don’t expect anything but the truth.” He pulled the perfectly browned strips of shrimp out of the oil with his chopsticks and placed them on a metal rack to drain over paper towels. “But…she must have thought Ash was a girl for a reason.” 

“Okay, so I didn’t tell her Ash was a ‘he’ right away but…today…she said Michael told her who Ash was…so…fuck it, she put two and two together.”

“I’m not ashamed,” Eiji said, taking the rice bowls out of the cabinet and setting them on the counter. “You know, I would have taken him back to Japan to meet my family if I could have. I would have shown him everything I ever—”

“Goddamn it, Eiji,” Sing interrupted. He dumped the cucumbers into the salad bowl, years of pent-up frustration rising up like magma in a volcano. “Ash is dead. He’s dead, Eiji. When are you ever going to accept that? Let him go, for fuck’s sake!” He grasped Eiji by the shoulders and shook him roughly, as if he could shake sense into him, then pulled him to his chest and heaved a groan against his cheek. Sing towered over him, but it was Eiji who made him feel so weak. “Why can’t you move on? I want you to be happy again, Eiji…please…if you’re not happy, I’ll never be able to—”

This time it was Eiji who cut in, his voice calm, as if he hadn’t heard a word that Sing said. “I’m thinking of going up to Cape Cod tomorrow…to take some pictures. I want to take Akira and Buddy, too. Sing, come with me.” 

Another battle lost, thought Sing. It was hopeless. No matter how many times he tried to move Eiji forward, it always came back to Ash. Ash! He might as well be alive still, he held that much power over Eiji. And now Eiji wanted to go to Cape Cod. What the hell was up with _that_? Eiji had avoided all of Ash’s favorite haunts for the last seven years—he wouldn’t even go anywhere near the New York Public Library—and now he wanted to visit Ash’s childhood hometown? This could only be yet another regression. Had he pushed Eiji too hard? Sing wondered. Was that it? Every attempt to make Eiji leave Ash behind only seemed to make him hold on tighter. But of course Sing answered, “Yes, I’ll go with you.” What else _could_ he say? He had never been able to say ‘no’ to Eiji, so he would continue to say ‘yes’ until…until Eiji finally opened his eyes and saw that there was someone who loved him as much as Ash Lynx had, someone who would never leave him behind to suffer.

*** 

Shorter leaned across Ash, who was slouched over his drink, and yelled over to the man at the other end of the bar. “Hey, _Frederick_ , you pussy! They’re playing your song!” A Flock of Seagulls’ _I Ran_ was blasting through the speakers and Shorter couldn’t resist sticking it to the asshole.

“That’s _Arthur_ to you, douchebag.” The big blond with the electrified hair flipped Shorter the bird before taking his Budweiser and disappearing into the crowd on the dance floor.

In the Land of the Living, the former Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion was a gym featuring all the latest professional-grade workout equipment, but for the Dead, it was still Limelight in its mid-80s to 90s glory days so, yeah, A Flock of Seagulls was being spun by the DJ. Shorter nudged Ash and quipped, half-drunk, “Get it? _I ran_? That Arthur was always a coward.”

Ash grimaced and slugged down another shot of bourbon. He hadn’t liked it in life, but Max was always drinking bourbon and, well, he needed a nip or two of comfort right now no matter how bad it tasted. Seeing Eiji at the gallery and then overhearing that conversation between Sing and Akira had made mincemeat of his heart. He didn’t even want to go clubbing but Shorter had insisted. “You need a distraction and I _don’t_ mean following Eiji home like some crazy stalker.”

Is that what he had become, a crazy stalker? He usually went alone to Eiji’s home in Greenwich Village, but that hadn’t been for a while because…well…it _was_ sort of like stalking and he was becoming more and more fearful that Sing would actually make a move on his boy. The two were practically living together like a couple—like Ash had lived with Eiji that year filled with so much chaos—and Sing was so obviously in love with Eiji. Who wouldn’t be in love with Eiji? Ash asked himself, and then he’d want to punch the living daylights out of Sing, if only he could. Christ, if he ever saw Sing confessing to Eiji, Ash didn’t know what he would do. Probably blow his top like Mount Vesuvius or Krakatoa, so he had stopped going to the house. That was maybe a month ago. But the urge to see his sweet cinnamon roll was more than he could withstand and so Ash reasoned: it wouldn’t be stalking if I see him in a public place, rather than sitting on his bed and watching Eiji cry himself to sleep, or rubbing one out next to him to the sound of Eiji moaning his name. 

Today, though, when he overheard Sing admit to Akira that he and Eiji were soulmates, it made his need to see Eiji that much stronger. So, later that evening when Shorter went to go check on his sister Nadia as usual, Ash crept off to Eiji’s place on his own and crouched in the kitchen watching Eiji and Sing laughing and cooking together. It was horrible, but Ash couldn’t stop drinking the poison. He wanted to flee the scene, knew he should, especially when Sing put his arms around Eiji and…thank the fuck god Eiji didn’t let Sing confess.

“That’s my boy,” thought Ash. “That’s my little cockblocker.” Then he heard Eiji invite Sing to Cape Cod and Ash almost had a heart attack. Why couldn’t those two just stay the fuck apart?! It wasn’t until he followed Sing into his bedroom after dinner that he determined to go to Cape Cod with them. He had to, because Sing was talking to Ash’s old computer as if it were Ash sitting there in real life. 

“It’s been long enough, Ash. You hear me?” Sing growled, low and angry. “Let Eiji go now. If you don’t let him go, he’ll never be happy again.”

“Fuck you, Sing!” Ash hissed into the room. “What do you know about making him happy?”

Sing ignored him, of course, and continued his rant at the boxy old computer, threatening it with a jab of his finger. “Listen to me, Ash. I’m getting him back from you, no matter what.”

Well, that did it. “Oh, it’s on!” roared Ash. “Bring it!” He stomped the hell out of there, slamming the door behind him as if anyone could hear him and went to see Shorter, who had texted him to meet for drinks at one of their favorite old clubs. Ash was a ball of angry confusion as he pounded the pavement towards 6th Avenue and then headed north, need and regret raging like an inferno in his gut.

They had been ridiculously chaste with each other in life—he and Eiji—just kissing and caressing and pretending they weren’t dying to go all the way. The one time they had actually groped each other in the heat of passion…well, it had ended abruptly and in embarrassment, both of them literally creaming their pants like two horny teenaged dorks. Yeah. Such dorks. Despite what Ash had told Shorter at the gallery—all that stuff about not wanting to defile Eiji—none of it had meant that the desire was any less. What Ash had done with those other men…Eiji wasn’t them. Eiji was set apart and on a pedestal but now Ash was wishing he had treated him less like a holy vessel of purity and freedom and more like the boy made of flesh and blood that he was, those deep dark brown eyes pleading for a closeness that Ash had never allowed and shit, shit, shit, if _only_ he _had_ because that testosterone-fueled Sing was going to get there first, he was going to have Eiji’s precious virginity sooner or later. He had been such a fool to hold back!

For some reason, Ash couldn’t get the idea of touching Eiji’s hair out of his mind. Eiji wore it longish now, not unlike how Ash kept his own hair, and Ash wondered what it would feel like twirled around his finger…maybe brushing against his lips. And those glasses…Eiji had worn contacts before but for the last few years he’d worn glasses instead. Ash could swear that the frames were the same ones as his old reading glasses. Didn’t that mean Eiji was still his? And, holy hell, was he developing some kind of eyewear kink? He imagined those glasses getting all fogged up as things got hot and heavy between them, then taking those glasses off before planting a nice wet kiss on Eiji’s soft lips. God, his thoughts were racing and ricocheting inside his skull; he couldn’t shut it down. Across the dance floor, he caught a glimpse of Arthur’s shock of blond hair bobbing up and down to the music. Seeing Arthur wasn’t exactly a treat, but the idiot wasn’t worth his time. He had been a pain in the ass in life, an annoyance more than any real threat. The only thing that Ash regretted was the fact that Eiji had seen him killing Arthur. Christ. If only Eiji had gone to the airport like he was supposed to…

But then, if Kong and Bones had done their job properly and deposited Eiji at JFK that morning, he would never have seen him again, never felt Eiji’s arms around him when he needed it most, never had the chance to spend almost a year living with him, the most blissful year of his life despite the hardships. Maybe he should be grateful to Arthur, because his actions had brought him and Eiji together in ways that may have slipped through the cracks otherwise. The Flock of Seagulls’ song ended and then the next one echoed through the sound system: _Love My Way_ by the Psychedelic Furs. Ash groaned loud enough for Shorter to hear him over the music. Could things get any more depressing? Richard Butler—king of melancholy—crooned away as the night wore on with nothing but the nightmare of Cape Cod to look forward to in the morning. He let Shorter pull him into the crowd of the Dead and danced his troubles away.

_______

For anyone not familiar with K-Pop or music from the mid-80s to 90s, here are the songs I mention in this chapter:

[SHINEE, Lucifer](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dww9UjJ4Dt8)

[TVXQ, Purple Line](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1OIO3cYpzo)

[A Flock of Seagulls, I Ran](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIpfWORQWhU)

[The Psychedelic Furs, Love My Way](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fxUqUciFXc)

 


	8. Chapter 8

It was a five-and-a half-hour drive from Manhattan to Cape Cod, an almost straight shot northeast on I-95 with several quick pit stops along the way, but only because they had settled Akira and Buddy into the backseat of Sing’s old Rover Mini Cooper at 2:00 am to avoid all the daytime traffic, which would have added another two hours to their trip. They arrived just as pancakes and bacon were being served in the dining room of the small B&B. The house was typical for the New England shore area: wood framed and clapboard sided, with a steep gabled roof featuring shuttered dormers and a wrap-around porch welcoming one into the paneled front door located right smack in the middle of the facade. The owners, an older couple named Marge and Bob, ushered them into the foyer, giving Eiji a warm hug before Eiji introduced Sing and Akira to them. Buddy made a beeline for the kitchen.

As they unpacked a few things in their second floor room before heading back down for breakfast, Sing couldn’t hold back from expressing his surprise. “You’ve been here before?” he asked Eiji. They could both see Akira through the open doorway connecting her room to theirs; she was jumping up and down on her bed like a five-year-old, full of energy after sleeping the entire way.

“Yes. I came up here with Ash…” Eiji stilled, silent for a moment, before hanging up a shirt and adding, “...and Ibe-san and Max...and…Shorter.” There was another pause, and then Eiji said softly, his back turned to Sing as he stood in front of the closet, “It was before I met you.” The weird thing was, not long after he had visited Cape Cod with Ash and the others, he and Sing had both been at Golzine’s mansion when Shorter was still alive, barely so, but fate would have it that he and Sing didn’t actually see or speak to each other until months later when they were both bailed out of prison by Yut-Lung after Ash had killed Arthur. “Ash’s house…it’s around ten miles from here. I don’t know if it’s there anymore.” Eiji swallowed the lump in his throat and forced himself to breathe, to steady his voice. That house, where Ash’s mother had abandoned him before he could even remember her face, the house that Ash had returned to the day he had been raped by his baseball coach, the house he had run away from after his brother Griffin left for the war, the house Ash’s own father refused to live in…Eiji had slept in that house, on the floor with Ash and Shorter, he had fired Ash’s gun outside in the backyard, Ash’s hands guiding him as only Ash could. That house, where Ash had been born and his soul had died more than once, it was both cradle and grave and yet Eiji couldn’t think of it without fondness. Everything was there: the sleazy and the sweet, the horrible and the good, as he had told the journalist during the interview the day before, and what had been true for Ash was still true for Eiji. He clutched at his shirt over his heart, willing the pain away. “Marge and Bob…I met them when I was here for a photo shoot for _Architectural Digest_ three years ago. I’ve stayed here a few times since.”

“When?” Sing drew close behind Eiji and put a hand on his shoulder, turning him around to face him. He wanted to look into Eiji’s eyes and know…what? That he hadn’t utterly lost him to a ghost?

“Once when you were on spring break, once during the summer, once during the winter.” Eiji gazed up at Sing; he could see the gears turning in Sing’s mind. “You were in China with Yut-Lung those times. Remember? Taking care of business?”

Sing frowned. “If I’d have known you didn’t want to be alone—”

“It’s not that,” Eiji said. He reached up and rubbed his thumbs at Sing’s brow, smoothing the lines. “You shouldn’t make that face, Sing. You’ll get wrinkles before you even grow old.”

“Eiji.” It didn’t matter that Akira was right next door and in line of sight; Sing wrapped his arms around Eiji and drew him up against his chest, held him tightly, his chin resting in his silky hair. “Would that be so bad? I’d like that, you know, growing old with you. I promise I won’t get wrinkles if you let me stay with you.” He bent down closer and brushed his lips against Eiji’s cheek, but when he went to kiss his mouth, Eiji pushed him away.

“Don’t.” Eiji was staring at Sing’s Adam’s apple, his cheeks flushed, his fingers trembling just a little as he gripped Sing’s thick biceps. “I can’t.”

“Can’t or won’t?” Sing asked gently. “He’s not here, Eiji. He can’t see you. He wouldn’t know, okay? You have a right to be happy. I can make you happy if you give me a chance. You just have to let him go.” What began as reassurance ended as begging as he pushed Eiji against the closet door, his hands roaming a little too desperately down Eiji’s back. “Please, Eiji, don’t you need this? Don’t you want to—?”

There was a disgusted shriek behind them. “Ew! Are you two going to _kiss_?” Akira stood in the doorway with her feet set apart and her hands on the sides of her head, as if she were preventing her skull from exploding. Okumura-san loving a beautiful boy named Ash was one thing—something mysterious and amorphous and existing only in the realm of fantasy, the same fantasy realm in which Okumura-san would fall in love with _her_ and they would get married and live happily ever after—but Okumura-san getting it on with that hulking Sing was way too much reality for her thirteen-year-old brain to handle. And what was with that odd tingle between her legs as she gaped at them? 

“Little kids shouldn’t be spying on grown-ups,” Sing scolded, grateful he was wearing jeans instead of loose summer shorts because he could only imagine the shit she would shovel his way if she saw the fabric all tented at his groin. He got a pink tongue stuck out at him instead. “Really, Akira? I ought to spank you for disrespecting your elders.”

“ _You’re_ the one who should get spanked for trying to kiss—”

Eiji shouldered his way around Sing, innocently smoothing the front of his wrinkled shirt with a la-di-dah, carefree attitude that wasn’t fooling anyone. “Don’t be silly, Aki-chan. I had something in my eye (which was true) and…aren’t we all hungry for breakfast now? Come.” He grabbed Akira’s hand and led her downstairs to the dining room, followed by a red-faced Sing, not quite sure if she was the heroine in this scenario or the villainess.

At the breakfast table, though, Akira kept shooting Sing death ray glances. She had met Eiji when she was four and he was a high school student and the subject of her Uncle Shunichi’s first photo exhibition. Aside from the fact that Eiji had mistaken her for a boy, she had liked him immensely from the start. He was sweet and would play with her whenever she had opportunity to visit with Ibe-san. Eiji was working as her uncle’s photo assistant and was an athlete to boot. Was it any wonder she had grown to love him? She was afraid to make the trip to America alone, but the idea of seeing him again now that she was a “woman” in the Oh-no-I’ve-got-my-period sense, carried so much more meaning. She had expected him to look very different—three years had gone by since Eiji had visited his family in Japan—but, no, other than longer hair, he was as youthful as ever. It was a relief. She could still catch up to him, maybe even make him notice her and think of her as that special someone. Learning about Ash had been a terrible shock at first, but Ash was dead apparently, so he was no longer a rival and a threat in the immediate sense. This Sing, though, was more of an obstacle.

“You know, in Japan, people aren’t so grabby,” she told Sing as she poured more maple syrup onto her short stack of pancakes.

Sing snorted and shoved another strip of bacon into his mouth. “Grabby? You mean like handsy, like touchy-feely?” He reached out and messed up her hair with his greasy fingers.

Akira scowled in dismay. “Hey, you gorilla!”

“Oh?” laughed Sing. “I’m a gorilla now? Maybe you’re just jealous because I'm tall and sexy.”

“Baka!”

***

Ash sat in the empty chair next to Eiji, closely observing his calm demeanor. Not ten minutes ago Sing had been all over Eiji like an octopus on a tasty snack, and now Eiji was sitting there eating his breakfast and pretending nothing had happened. Yes, Eiji’s purity was still intact, nothing short of a miracle, but Ash couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened if Akira hadn’t interrupted Sing’s attempt at getting it on with his boy. “Would you have let Sing kiss you?” Eiji turned his head and looked wistfully out the window of the dining room, the sunlight making his skin glow almost pink on his cheeks. “Don’t let him,” Ash whispered. “You said you would wait for me…forever.”

He had snuck out of Limelight while Shorter was on the dance floor busting his very sick moves and gone back to Eiji’s place, hoping to snuggle up next to him in bed and watch him sleep. It was one of his favorite things. When they had shared a bedroom at the fancy condo, but kept separate beds like some married couple from the 1950s, he had always liked to hear the sound of Eiji’s soft breathing in the dark. It was comforting to know he was right there, just a few feet away, his other half. As much as he had wanted to, Ash had never taken that next step, that is, he had never slipped under the covers and held him spooned against his chest, his nose pressed into the back of Eiji’s head, his hair tickling his face. But he could do that now—hold him and breathe him in, listen to his little whimpers and snores—and Eiji would be none the wiser. It might be considered a perk, the fact that he could come and go like the Invisible Man, but it also made the chasm between them that much wider. To love from afar…it was so much worse than not loving at all. As many times as he touched Eiji now—openly and without reservation, sometimes even wantonly—Eiji would never feel his caresses, never know that he was right there by his side, locked in the same cage of longing and loneliness that Ash had put them both in. What ridiculous irony! He had wanted to be free his whole life. Eiji had fought and struggled beside him for the very same thing, but now they were both prisoners, one in life, one in death. He had always told Eiji that they were from two different worlds, as if that were reason enough for why they couldn’t be together and goddamn if he hadn’t made it come horribly true.

He had found them clambering into Sing’s car at two in the morning and barely had time to slip into the back between Akira and Buddy before they took off down the avenue, Sing’s huge frame wedged into the driver’s seat. “Seriously?” Ash grumbled, “you’re fucking humungous and yet you insist on keeping a car the size of a tin can?” Then there was Buddy to contend with: five and a half hours of dog breath in his face on the drive up to Cape Cod. It was worth it though—the dog breath, the misery of seeing Eiji once again in Sing’s arms—because after breakfast a wonderful thing happened. They all went for a walk on the pier, Eiji chattering about the time he had spent with Ash there, how they had gone to the river to fish, and then Eiji stopped suddenly, accosting a stranger because that stranger looked like Ash from behind, he had the same build and blond hair.

“I’m sorry,” Eiji quickly apologized, “I thought you were a friend of mine.” 

 _He’s still looking for me!_ Ash high-fived himself with joy. The look of crushing defeat on Sing’s face was the icing on the cake and, boy oh boy, did that cake taste dee-licious. A small part of himself felt the tiniest tug of guilt for gloating over such petty victory. Sing had always admired him, after all, looked up to him as if Ash were the ultimate gang boss after Shorter had died. The kid had even been an ally, defying Yut-Lung and protecting Eiji, fighting _for_ Ash instead of against him as he probably should have. And in the years since Ash’s self-imposed death, Sing had continued to look after Eiji, having convinced Yut-Lung to give up his stupid vendetta and let Eiji live in peace. If anything, he should be grateful to Sing, but no…the heart will go where it will and neither Ash’s nor Sing’s could be tamed. They were each like a dog on a bone, fighting for the same rich marrow, but Sing now held the advantage in some ways. Ash could no longer pull all that alpha bullshit on him, slap him into submission as he had done in the past, intimidate and outfight him. Even if he weren’t dead and totally impotent against the living, even if he were still alive, Sing could likely beat the shit out of him now. He wasn’t a scrawny fourteen-year-old lightweight anymore. At six-foot-three and totally ripped, Sing could give even that Blanca a run for his money.

“I don’t want to be a musclebound freak like you!” Ash had once told Blanca when his mentor had advised him to beef up his body, but Sing had seen fit to follow the meathead route. Eiji had always seemed to like Ash’s sleek and slender build, but even Ash couldn’t deny that Sing had a pair of mighty fine guns on him, especially when the tank top he was wearing gave everyone a clear view of those shapely biceps. Ash flexed his own, squeezing them between his fingers, testing for firmness, then punched himself in the face. He couldn’t believe he had turned into such a jealous, insecure lunatic. Shorter was right, he had gone off the rails and Shorter would give him an earful if he found out that he had followed Eiji to Cape Cod. “Shit,” Ash mumbled, giving himself another minute on the pier to gaze at Eiji walking into the distance, camera in hand and taking photos, Sing trailing beside him like a huge shadow, Akira skipping circles around them with Buddy on the leash. “I trust you, Ei-chan. I’ll see you when you get home.” Then he turned and headed to the station to catch the train back to New York.

 


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than usual for me. I had written it as two separate chapters, but then I decided it might work better uploaded as one uninterrupted section. Again, it has spoilers.

 

That letter. Sometimes Eiji wondered if he had doomed them both with that letter. He had written it in a last ditch attempt at reconciliation before he flew back to Japan, to convince Ash in no uncertain terms that they were meant to be together, if not in the flesh, then at least in spirit. “My soul is always with you.” What a fucking foolish thing to say—such poetic bullshit!—as if being together in _spirit_ was an acceptable option when the only thing that would really suffice was the heat of one body clinging to another, skin-on-skin, mouth-to-mouth, fluids exchanged, _arigatou gozaimasu_. Eiji’s younger sister had given him an _omamori_ granting good luck in love and marriage when he had first gone to America. A good luck charm granting safety would have been far more practical and ultimately valuable but, boy oh boy, did he hit the jackpot in love. He would have eagerly married Ash, too, but any hope for a future with Ash was shot to shit because he just had to pen that cursed letter. Had Eiji’s pantheon of gods seen his letter and taken it at face value? Had the god in charge of love and marriage said to his fellow immortals, “Well, if Eiji’s _soul_ is already with Ash, then we’re done here, right?”

Like a bad penny, that letter kept turning up, even in Cape Cod. They were back at the B&B after their stroll up and down the pier and Akira was now off again with Buddy for a walk on the trails near the inn. Sing and Eiji sat in the shade of the porch while Eiji looked over the photos he had taken earlier: Akira poking at a fish in a bucket, Buddy getting dive bombed by a seagull, that stranger with blond hair, Sing standing with his arms akimbo as he posed on the porch with Akira and Buddy. Digital cameras were so convenient, the results instantaneous, not like in the old days of film when he had worked as Ibe-san’s photo assistant. But for his art photography, as opposed to his commercial work for various magazines and media outlets, Eiji still used his traditional SLR camera and kept a darkroom in his apartment in which to develop the film. He had boxes and boxes of negatives and contact sheets and 35mm slides stored in his bedroom closet at home, photos taken during that year spent with Ash, a record of an almost mythical time and one Eiji could only return to in the darkness of his dreams at night. To revisit those memories in the light of day, well, it was like staring straight into the sun and letting Ash burn him to cinders.

“Why’d you invite her to visit you anyway?” Sing asked, taking advantage of some alone time with Eiji. It had almost killed Sing when he saw Eiji go up to that blond-haired stranger on the pier. Ash. Eiji had thought that young man was Ash, and Sing had wanted to scream, “Get over him!” But he didn’t, because when it became obvious that the stranger _wasn’t_ Ash, Sing had felt the pain all over again. Eiji’s grief…wasn’t it his own, too? Lao…he might as well have stabbed him and Eiji along with Ash, Lao had sent all of them to hell. Were they all stuck in the same cage? He had asked Ash once, “Have you ever regretted becoming a boss?” And Ash had replied, “All the time.” The regret…it never went away.

In his typical halting voice, Eiji explained why he let Akira visit him in America. The girl had been unwanted. Her father had hoped for a boy and had decided upon the name Akira—normally a boy’s name—before the baby was born. Later on, Akira’s father had actually voiced his disappointment in front of her, as if it wouldn’t cut her to pieces. 

“She’s having trouble accepting herself as a girl,” Eiji said, “and she thinks that the reason her father doesn’t come home anymore is that she isn’t a boy, like he wanted.”

 _Well, shit_ , thought, Sing, _wasn’t that just like Eiji to come to the rescue?_ Even from a million miles away, Eiji had been sensitive to Akira’s plight and offered a safe haven, the same way he had heard Buddy’s little puppy cries from the trash heap and taken him home, the same way he had felt Ash’s pain and reached out to comfort him when no one else had. “You’ve got a sixth sense for those who need help,” Sing admitted, “this amazing ability to sense the last, desperate S.O.S. signals people send out.” _I bet this is why Ash loved him_.

Eiji fell silent, though, his head bowed in thought. They had refused to acknowledge the elephant in the room for seven years now—seven years of circling around the guilt that was slowly consuming both of them, seven years of nursing a wound that would not, could not heal as long as they kept it buried inside them. It was time to expose it for what it was. Eiji’s voice was barely a whisper when he finally spoke. “There was one signal I ignored. That was yours, Sing. I pretended not to hear it. You see…I knew about the letter. I knew that my letter…was the reason he—” 

 _Oh, no, Eiji, don’t open that can of worms!_ “That’s not—! That’s not true!” Sing shouted, but it was too late. He couldn’t stop Eiji from saying what must not ever be said. The truth was too painful; it was best to look the other way. How many times as a child had Sing dreamt that he was hiding from some demon intent on murdering him? How many times had he averted death by simply shutting his eyes during those nightmares? If he didn’t see it, look upon it, then he could will it away.

But Eiji wouldn’t close his eyes, wouldn’t turn away, not now, not anymore. He would finally confess his horrible sin. “I knew about it, but I didn’t tell you that…I knew how terrible you felt, but I didn’t try to take the load off of your shoulders. I just kept asking myself why I didn’t go see him myself, instead of asking you to take that letter. I kept telling myself I should have gone—even if I had to crawl on my hands and knees.” 

“Oh god, Eiji, don’t,” Sing pleaded. “Don’t do this.”

Eiji had written that letter before he was discharged from the hospital and asked Sing to deliver it to Ash like some unwitting courier of death. That letter was still clutched in Ash’s cold hands when he was found dead in the library, slumped at a reading table after being stabbed by Lao. That letter, along with Ash’s old computer, was now kept in Eiji’s spare bedroom, the one that Sing slept in, objects as precious and revered as a saint’s relics. Sing had read that letter numerous times—it was a love letter if there ever was one—and marveled at the pages stained with Ash’s blood and tears. It was that letter containing the most beautiful, fearless sentiments that must have enabled Lao to get close enough to strike, there was no other explanation for how Ash could have been caught unawares. Eiji’s presence was the one and only thing that ever made Ash let his guard down. _You are not alone, Ash. I am with you_ , Eiji had written. Indeed. Through his words Eiji was right there with Ash, in his head and heart and lulling Ash into hopeful reverie in the moments before Lao plunged in the knife. The idea that they—Sing and Eiji—had inadvertently played a part in Ash’s death…it had crushed both of their souls. They couldn’t forgive themselves, so they had each feigned ignorance in order to free the other of responsibility. Ignorance—whether feigned or real—does not weigh the same as innocence on the scales of justice. They were both damned.

“It was killing me,” Eiji continued, “so I just focused on hating Lao and ignoring your pain. It was the only way I could live with myself.” A ray of sunlight broke through the thick canopy of trees in full leaf and cast a dancing pattern on Eiji’s hair. He turned his face upwards finally, feeling the caress of warmth on his skin, a caress that stirred a long ago memory of Ash placing the palm of his hand on his forehead to check for fever after Blanca’s bullet had grazed his right shoulder. So much love had been behind that gentle touch, enough love to last more than one lifetime. “I’ll never forget Ash,” Eiji said. “I’d never want to forget him. But that doesn’t mean I’m not happy, or that I’ll never be happy again.”

 _Define happy_ , Sing wanted to shout. That last statement from Eiji was the biggest pile of bullshit Sing had ever heard. Clearly, neither of them was happy, unless they were now trapped in some Bizarro World where everything was topsy-turvy and happiness was equivalent to misery and the dead held greater sway over one’s heart than the living. “I don’t know if I even ought to be around you,” Sing replied in defeat, “but, well, I know I could never replace Ash.” Even in death, Ash had him beat, and Eiji’s next words were like the consolation prize worse than no prize at all.

“Of course you could never replace Ash.” Then Eiji quickly added with a smile, “Just like nobody could ever replace you, Sing.”

Yeah, that felt about as good as a kick in the nuts. Akira and Buddy clambered up the path and onto the porch at that moment, sparing Sing the humiliation of making some lame comeback without bawling his eyes out in despair. He stood like a statue as Eiji told Akira that Ash’s real name was Aslan, and that it carried the same meaning of “dawn” as her own name, a name she had hated because it was a reminder of her father’s disappointment in her. Now that name meant that she was loved oh so deeply. “There’s only one of you in the whole wide world,” Eiji told her. She was special, she held a place in Okumura-san’s heart alongside this beautiful boy who shared her name. And when Eiji embraced Akira, who wept with relief in his arms, Sing finally knew the battle was over. He had really truly lost to Ash. It wasn’t the first time. Even Yut-Lung had told him that there was no shame in admitting defeat to an opponent as powerful and deadly as Ash Lynx. _You win_ , thought Sing, and for the first time in seven years, he felt free. 

***

Ash was startled awake by the sound of a chair scraping across the wood floor. He had returned on the train to Manhattan the day before and then gotten into a huge argument with Shorter while shooting a round of pool. It was harder to justify his recent actions when even little Skip was giving him the side-eye.

“It’s stalking, bro. No two ways about it,” Shorter insisted. He was beating the pants off of a very defensive Ash, which only made Shorter feel more self-confident. “I _cannot_ believe you followed him to Cape fucking Cod. Of all places! You _know_ what went down there before. What were you thinking, man?”

“I was just making sure your horny boy Sing didn’t take liberties with my Ei-chan.” Ash sank the eight ball into the pocket for the fifth time. “Fucking hell!” Game over. He slammed the cue stick onto the worn green felt of the pool table and went to sit at the bar to sulk.

Skip tugged at the hem of Shorter’s t-shirt and whispered, “He sure is in a bad mood. Should I go get Griff? Maybe he can talk some sense into him?”

“Nah," huffed Shorter. "He just needs to get laid. With someone on _this_ side of the fence.” He sent Skip off to get take-out noodles and then plopped himself down at the stool next to Ash. “Are you done feeling sorry for yourself?”

“Leave me alone,” Ash grumbled. “I’ve got a freaking headache.”

“Are you sure it’s not your balls aching? Listen, dude, you need to let Eiji and Sing do their—”

“You’re only defending Sing ‘cause he’s one of yours,” Ash interjected.

“Th’ fuck does that mean: one of yours? What? Like, he’s Chinese so I’m gonna be on his side?”

“Exactly.” 

“Shit, you are a goddamn piece of work right now, do you know that?”

“Go perv over your sister.”

They didn’t often get into fist fights, but Ash was asking for one and Shorter was pumped and ready to rumble. After twenty minutes of taking wild swings and pummeling each other in the ribs, they lay on the dusty floor panting and sweating profusely and laughing and calling each other “dumbass” and “pussy” and “cocksucker” and those were just the nicer profanities.

“Do you still hate me?” asked Shorter. He rolled on top of Ash and placed a sloppy wet kiss on his lips.

Ash shoved him off easily. Shorter was ticklish and all he had to do was grab Shorter around the waist and squeeze and the heavier, more muscular man was helpless on his back and giggling like a schoolgirl. Now it was Ash looming over his friend with a smirk. “Yeah, I still hate you.” He kissed him just as messily, tonguing him in exaggerated fashion until Shorter finally pushed Ash aside with a disgusted groan.

“God, we are so fucking gross!” Shorter stood up, brushing himself off and primping his mohawk. He offered his hand and pulled Ash off the floor and back onto their stools. They were none the worse for wear.

“I know you’re right,” Ash said, calm and contrite now. “I know I have to let him go. I just don’t know how. I’ve tried and tried…” It was no lie. He had tried to send Eiji away at first—when they were in LA, and before his fight with Arthur—and each time he had failed. In the end, he gave up, gave in to his own need to keep Eiji by his side even though it meant putting him in danger. He had to admit that he would be worried sick about Eiji if he were out of sight, and so he stopped telling him to go back to Japan. After Eiji was shot and almost mortally wounded, Blanca called Ash out on it, accusing him of keeping Eiji with him out of selfish desire to assuage his own loneliness. That was true, too, so painfully true. So he had tried again to stay away, visiting Eiji just once in the hospital…god…out of all the horrific things that had happened in his life, that was quite possibly the worst…to see his beloved Eiji like that after seeing him lying in a pool of his own blood, to hear Eiji crying and begging him to go before the cops caught him. It was like the world was ending and he and Eiji would have to die apart from each other. It was unbearable, to not see him again, to not go to the airport, but he had the letter that Eiji wrote him and that letter was like a thread tying him to Eiji even as he sat bleeding to death in the library, a thread that would keep their hearts linked forever.

So how was he to break that tie now? How was he to jettison half his soul? He went back to Eiji’s apartment and laid on his bed and waited. He would listen to Shorter for once and say farewell for now. He would be patient and wait his turn. Sing wasn’t a bad person. In fact, he was pretty fucking amazing and Ash would concede to him. It was the right thing to do. He had always wished for Eiji to be happy, but instead he had secretly reveled in his sorrow because wasn’t he suffering with grief, too? Well, at least one of them should be happy, and it should be Eiji. 

Eiji was home at last and standing on a chair in front of his bedroom closet when Ash woke up. He watched Eiji remove a stack of boxes from an upper shelf and then haul out an old slide projector and set it on his desk. It was almost one in the morning and Eiji looked tired, his face drawn and serious, but he was still wearing his t-shirt and shorts after the drive home from Cape Cod. He took the slides out of the plastic sheets and loaded them into the slide tray, flipped on the projector and focused the first image on the opposite wall. 

“Sorry for keeping you locked up for so long,” Eiji murmured. “I hid away all your pictures…as if that would make any difference.”

They were all images of Ash: Ash with a towel over his wet hair after a shower, Ash still asleep in bed with the rumpled sheets pulled up to his chin, Ash getting dressed, Ash fishing at the river, Ash reading a book, Ash shirtless and cooking at the stove. There were some of both Ash and Eiji together; Ibe-san must have taken those shots: Eiji posing with Ash and making the peace sign with his fingers, Ash and Eiji wearing hideous knit sweaters, Eiji rubbing tanning lotion on Ash’s back, Ash and Eiji eating ice cream cones. They both looked so happy and carefree in those photos. The last image was one of Ash sitting in the open window of one of their flophouses. He had one knee pulled up and was resting his chin on his hand, his eyes closed as the morning sun lit half his face. Ash couldn’t recall the moment that Eiji took that shot, but Eiji was staring at that image as if…as if it had special meaning for him. In the darkness of the room, Ash heard Eiji weeping, soft cries like always. The light cast off by the projector illuminated his wet cheeks, his eyes glistening with tears as he continued to stare at the image on the wall.

“Oh, my love,” Ash whispered, drawing near to kneel down beside Eiji, who sat trembling on the chair, overcome with god knows how many memories. “It’s okay. You can let me go now. I’ll wait for you...forever.”

____________

 

I had this song in my head when I wrote this chapter: [Jon Secada, Just Another Day (Without You)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57HumgGC8Rk)

 


	10. Chapter 10

He titled the photograph “Dawn,” and hung it in the last room of the gallery, the same way the ancients would house their sacred idol in the holiest of holies, the innermost sanctum where only the high priest could enter to pay obeisance, to worship with incense and prayers. There were no high priests at the crowded opening, and the attendees could come and go through all the rooms, sipping wine and bandying about the names of famous photographers whose work were comparable to Eiji’s in style, composition, subject matter, but the hushed atmosphere of that smaller, more private space—darkened but for the two lights illuminating the framed silver gelatin print of Ash silhouetted against the morning sun coming through the window—lent an almost spiritual quality and people immediately lowered their voices, speaking only in whispers, as if they knew that they were in the presence of something sublime.

It was the first and only time Eiji put Ash on display for the public. It had never been his intention to show Ash like this to others: unguarded, vulnerable, lost to his own mystery. It was such an intimate view into his soul that it felt almost sacrilegious to reveal it to strange eyes. _This is the Ash that I knew, the Ash no one else had ever seen_. But after that talk with Sing in Cape Cod, Eiji decided it was time to stop running away from his own guilt, his own fear and self-loathing, and face it head-on. _I killed you, Ash. I can’t hide from the truth anymore_. Looking through those old slides of Ash after years of keeping them under wraps…it had hurt beyond belief to see all that beauty and life snuffed out so cruelly. Eiji had cried through the night, cried until exhaustion swept him under and he dreamt of Ash reaching out to him across the void. When he awoke the next morning, the sun was warm on his face and he knew what to do. Ash had spoken to him; he was sure of it. It was that photo of Ash sitting in the window that called to Eiji like a melody remembered since childhood, like a scent that sends one back to a time and a place with more clarity than anything seen with one’s eyes. _That was the moment I knew I loved you, Ash. That was the moment my own life began._ He would move forward. After years of standing still, buried in a self-made grave, he would rise up and move forward at last into the light. _Give me your blessing, Ash_. 

At the opening, Eiji was busy speaking to critics and various art bloggers, so it was Sing who led Akira by the hand to see the photograph in the back room. The girl was starting to grow on Sing. Though they spent most of their time sniping at each other, it was all in good fun, and anyone who had a crush on Eiji, well, who could blame them? On the drive back from Cape Cod, Akira had told Sing that she was glad she was a girl so she could grow up and turn into a foxy lady and marry Okumura-san. It was hilarious, the things a thirteen-year-old girl could say, but her sincere hopefulness was endearing. It reminded him of Eiji…an Eiji he had known when Ash was still alive. As he and Akira stood in front of the photograph, what came to Sing’s mind was the look of startled joy on Eiji’s face the day he had seen him off at the airport and told him that Ash couldn’t wait for him to come back to New York again. It was a lie; Ash had vowed never to see Eiji again, but Sing wanted to give Eiji something to hold on to, so he had told Eiji to return as soon as possible, that Ash would be waiting for him, and Eiji’s face had lit up so bright, as bright as a ray of sunshine, as bright as the sun casting its rays on Ash’s face in that photograph. It had always been Ash, it had _only_ been Ash who could make Eiji thrum with happiness, with life in all its terror and glory. Sing was ten years older than Akira and two feet taller, a gang boss and killer, but it was he who wept like a baby and Akira who squeezed his hand with a strength and surety that made his heart beat a little faster. 

*** 

The excitement and labor that went into his first major exhibition—not to mention the weeks of hosting Ibe-san’s niece—had left Eiji rather drained even a month after the opening. Akira had gone back home to Japan three weeks ago, so he didn't even have the excuse of entertaining her to account for his waning energy. He was in his darkroom experimenting with a wet collodion process when tiredness and a severe headache overtook him. The clock on the wall read three-thirty in the afternoon but Eiji was out of gas and decided that a break was in order. Sing was at Ash’s computer reading through files when Eiji poked his head in.

“Hey, Sing. I’m going to take a nap. Would you make sure I’m awake in two hours? I’ll make dinner for us.” 

“Gotcha,” Sing called back, his eyes still glued to the old CRT monitor. He had a report due for his Economics course at CUNY and he was flabbergasted by how prescient Ash had been. The guy had anticipated the rise of China on the global market years before it happened. Two and a half hours flew by before Sing glanced at his watch. “Shit.” He leapt up from his chair, his stomach grumbling, and went to Eiji’s room, knocking softly on the door before going in. “Eiji?” When Eiji remained on his side turned away from him, still as a statue, he walked over to the bed and put his hand on Eiji’s shoulder, shaking him gently. “Time to wake up, sleepy head.” The silent weight beneath his fingertips made Sing jolt back, as if he had been tasered. “Ei-ji?” It took only a split second and then Sing was hyperventilating, gasping in breaths and choking on them simultaneously. He was shaking like a leaf, sweat breaking out over the entire surface of his body, but he made himself do it. He rolled Eiji onto his back and…he had seen it before, that self-same expression; it was the same expression Ash had on his face when Sing had gone to the morgue to identify his body seven years ago.

“You were smiling,” Sing had thought at the time of Ash, “as if you were having a really good dream.”

He gazed down at Eiji and saw the same smile before his vision blurred and his whole world was plunged into darkness. “Were you dreaming of him?” was all Sing could manage to croak as he swept the body up into his arms, blind with tears. “Wh-why are you cold already? Oh Eiji…I would have stayed with you forever.” It was another half hour before Sing could get a grip on himself, stifle his sobs enough to kiss Eiji on both cheeks and whisper—his voice so fucking _gone_ —as he clutched him tightly to his chest, “Say hi to Ash for me.”

With shaking hands, Sing laid Eiji back down on the bed and covered him with the duvet, thinking of all the times his own mother had put him to bed when he was a child and pulled the comforter up to his chin, kissed him on his cheeks, on his forehead, on the tip of his nose. Eiji had had this, too: a mother who loved him, and Eiji had given his own love freely, even to him, to Sing, in all the ways that he could.

Sing pulled his phone out of his pocket and called 911. Then he texted Yut-Lung: _Eiji is dead_. 

In less than thirty seconds, Yut-Lung texted back: _I’ll take care of everything_.

The evening sun was glowing orange-red through the sheer curtains in Eiji’s bedroom. It was almost quarter past seven and normally Sing would be starving by now. Normally Eiji would be in the kitchen bringing out plates of this or that to the dining room table: fried pork cutlets, pickled radish, sautéed broccoli or eggplant, rice. No natto, even though Sing had never been averse to it. He was Chinese, after all, and the Chinese were _not_ afraid of natto. But there was no dinner on the table and Sing had no appetite. Eiji wasn’t in the kitchen with an apron around his waist, he was lying in bed before him, his unlined face as smooth and placid as an infant’s after a feeding.

“Are you satisfied?” Sing rasped into the silent room. “Eiji is yours forever. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Not so long ago, those words would have been uttered with bitterness, but no more. “Be good to him, Ash. He’s coming to you.”

***

Some things just couldn’t be rushed. It took seven years for the tiny shard of metal left behind from the bullet to wend its way into Eiji’s brain and form a blood clot large enough to trigger an aneurysm. The resulting hemorrhage had been massive and fatal, but it was also quick and painless, a world of difference from the way Ash had gone.

“He didn’t suffer,” Yut-Lung told Sing at the funeral, “he went peacefully.” Those were the same words Sing had used before when he had to tell Eiji that Ash had died, only this time, it wasn’t a lie.

Yut-Lung spared no expense for the memorial service, flew in Eiji’s family from Japan, as well as Ibe-san and Akira. Eiji’s ashes were cradled in a celadon-glazed Qing dynasty cremation urn carved with dragons, a rare and priceless piece of porcelain art from Yut-Lung’s own family collection, to be sent back to Japan with Eiji’s parents. A matching urn containing the remains of Ash was kept in a vault in Yut-Lung’s condo; he would give that one to Sing, with a portion of Eiji’s ashes mixed in, once he left New York permanently for Hong Kong. It was only right. It was Sing, after all, who had slapped some sense into him after Ash’s fight to the death with Col. Foxx, after Dino Golzine had met his own fiery death. Blanca had given Yut-Lung some very choice words of wisdom himself before joining Ash and Sing in their battle, and he _would_ have given Ash’s remains to Blanca—the man had loved Ash like a little brother, cared for him as much as Griffin ever did—but Blanca had left for the Caribbean the day before Ash had died, and even though Blanca was sitting on Yut-Lung’s right side on the front row pew right now, it was Sing who had suffered the most alongside Eiji for Ash’s sake. Yes, it was only right. Sing could have hated Yut-Lung, despised him for all the crap he had thrown at Ash and Eiji, but Sing had shown him how to be a better man instead.

The Church of the Transfiguration on Mott Street was overflowing with members of Ash’s old gang—Alex, Kong, Bones—as well as Cain and his men and the Chinatown boys, all rubbing elbows with New York artists, magazine editors, art directors, and journalists among the gorgeous sprays of white and yellow chrysanthemums. Max and Jessica sat in the front row with their son Michael, all three of them crying openly. There had been no funeral for Ash; he had been a wanted criminal at the time of his death, so this seemed the appropriate venue to mourn them both. Nadia sat next to Sing, Charlie on her other side. There hadn’t even been ashes to keep in a vase for her brother Shorter, but he had been cremated with proper respect by Ash anyway. The choir of little Chinese boys and girls singing “My Heart Will Go On" was somewhat weird, but Sing had requested it for some reason and it made everyone cry rivers of tears. Max got up and gave a ridiculous speech riddled with appalling dad jokes, Ibe-san told the story of how he had met Eiji when Eiji was a pole vaulter in high school, Akira took the podium and confessed that she was going to marry Eiji if only she had time to grow into a foxy lady. One by one—Sing, Cain, Alex, Kong, Bones, Jessica, Michael, Nadia, Charlie, Blanca, even Yut-Lung— they each shared a snippet from a not too distant past, when a naïve boy from Japan had met a cold blooded killer in New York, and two souls had become one.

_____

 

Here's the song sung at Eiji's funeral: [Celine Dion, My Heart Will Go On](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BdPDaFXcEo)

Try not to cry too hard.

 


	11. Chapter 11

The funeral service was like a ribbon knotted into a bow, a path that had come full-circle, or perhaps a snake swallowing its own tail. Yut-Lung wasn’t sure which one of those poetic images made more highfalutin sense after his sixth glass of champagne. Sometimes, even _he_ couldn’t stand his own cleverness. From his vantage point on an upper level landing, he had a clear view of the large dining space below with its murmuring press of bodies. Chinese Tuxedo, on nearby Doyers Street, was his venue of choice to hold the reception following the service, both for its atmosphere and its history. The upscale restaurant—known for its lush interior of towering tropical plants, its teak, bamboo, and dark leather surfaces, its sleek forty-foot bar, and its pseudo-fusion deconstructions of classic Cantonese cuisine—was once an opera house and then the favored hangout of the infamous Hip Sing Tong gang back in the old days when the street was notoriously called the Bloody Angle, and for good reason. Today it was the Lees—namely Yut-Lung and his one remaining zombie brother Hua-Lung— who controlled Chinatown, with Sing’s boys acting as enforcers. Life was good and Yut-Lung was in a celebratory mood. Why shouldn’t he be? Hadn’t Eiji Okumura been sent into the afterlife in style?

He tilted his head ever so coyly towards the large man standing next to him and pulled the corners of his pale lips into a sardonic smile. “So, do you still think I’m the evil Dragon Boy?” he asked Blanca with an exaggerated twirl of his wrist. Gesturing gracefully with his hands was an ingrained habit; if only he had been a competitive ice dancer instead of a slimy killer, he might have had more luck in the romance department. Fortunately, none of the Veuve Clicquot sloshed out of the fluted glass and onto his expensive silk changshan embroidered with undulating dragons.

“As always, you go too far, sir.” Ever the prudent professional, Blanca reached for Yut-Lung’s glass, only to have his hand swatted away. Some things don’t change. “Fine. Enjoy your hangover tomorrow.” 

Yut-Lung stuck his tongue out at the retired assassin—a handsome, square-jawed Russian who towered over him as much as when Yut-Lung was sixteen years old and harboring enough venomous hatred to last a thousand lifetimes. A momentary surge of annoyance flushed his cheeks pink when he realized that Sing was now as big and brawny as Blanca while he, the great Yut-Lung, had remained modest in physical stature. The irritation passed quickly, though, and he giggled behind a hand held demurely in front of his mouth. “Answer my question, _Sergei_ ,” demanded Yut-Lung, moving his elegant hand to his cocked hip and flashing a wicked smile. “Am I still the bad guy in this scenario?”

Blanca smiled back, amused and so tempted to tease, “Don’t you mean bad _girl_?” because Yut-Lung was truly exquisite, his long, jet-black hair braided into intricate patterns and decorated with gold ornaments that dangled and caught the light each time he moved his refined head. He may not have grown appreciably taller, but like a snake sloughing off its old skin and emerging with even brighter scales, Yut-Lung had shed his former raging jealousy and now sparkled like a vibrant jewel. He was, in a word, breathtaking. Blanca was never one to fall victim to seductive men, but he did appreciate beauty in either sex. Ash’s beauty had been pure and unadorned, a diamond in the rough, and even though Yut-Lung favored a more polished, stylized aesthetic, he was in so many ways cut from the same cloth as Ash. The two had been on opposite sides of the same coin, minted in the same forge of violence and misery, but choosing to go down different paths. Or had they? So he answered Yut-Lung’s question with another question. “That depends. Have you learned to love?”

Yut-Lung’s delicate features rearranged themselves into a somber mask before faltering, crumpling into a child’s hurt expression. “Who do you think would love _me_?”

“That’s not what I asked,” Blanca countered gently. “Have you forgotten what I told you before? You have to love first, then—”

“Oh, shut up! I don’t see _you_ traipsing about with a new wife.” The scowl was back on Yut-Lung’s face as he snagged another glass of champagne from a passing waiter and slugged it down like a dockworker. “Don’t be such a hypocrite.” 

Blanca took a glass for himself and raised it to the twenty-five-year-old hothead. “Touché.” In his heart of hearts, he could only wonder how Sing had ever put up with Yut-Lung’s vacillating moods the last seven years. Still, this was progress; Yut-Lung was as prickly as ever, but he was fairly rational in his lunacy, and his conciliatory gesture towards Eiji’s family was both genuine and generous. “Master Lee, we all know the dragon is both powerful and revered. Do your name proud,” Blanca advised.

“Yes, yes.” Yut-Lung sighed with exasperation. “I’m sure Buddha has you on speed dial, too, Mr. Know-It-All.” Yut-Lung was trashed and not about to be dressed down by a man who wasted his time sunning himself on some beach in the Caribbean. The sight of Sing chatting with Ibe’s niece in the dining room down below was far more worthy of his attention. In Yut-Lung’s alcohol-infused opinion, Sing was standing way too close to the teenaged girl. “Maybe you should go drop your obnoxious truth bombs on Sing instead,” Yut-Lung muttered to Blanca. Sing had stuck to Eiji like glue all these years out of shared guilt, and perhaps out of misdirected love, a transference of his feelings for Ash onto Eiji for all Yut-Lung knew. “You know what they say about rebound relationships. Hit him with your Dr. Phil act before he’s arrested for cradle robbing.”

For a long minute, Blanca quietly observed the the body language between Sing and Akira, the two of them leaning into each other, eyes locked. Sing had matured into a fine young man and Blanca was grateful that he had never had to train Sing to kill. Not that Sing hadn’t murdered his share of people, but Blanca had mentored Ash out of dire necessity, to ensure Ash’s survival in a world stacked unfairly against him. Sing, Blanca was certain, would go further than Ash. It was the luck of the draw, he supposed, but luck was everything when traversing the razor’s edge. Sing would not only survive, he would flourish without having to destroy his own soul, without having to choose between love and death. “Give them five years,” Blanca told Yut-Lung with a chuckle. “We’ll meet again at their wedding.”

*** 

“It’s about time.” What had started as an insouciant, perhaps even playfully snarky comment died in Ash’s throat as he took in the sight before him: Eiji out of breath from running up Fifth Avenue, his ebony hair more than a little disheveled, round sunglasses askew on the bridge of his nose even though it was close to midnight, and…Eiji was wearing the pink satin jacket with the yellow stripes down the sleeves and at at the cuffs and collar and pockets, those hideous white parachute pants with the banana leaf prints in green. “God, Eiji. I’ve been waiting for you.” Ash slid off the back of Patience—one of two marble lions flanking the Beaux Arts entrance of the New York Public Library—and slowly walked down the front steps, his eyes never leaving the young man panting on the sidewalk, hands on his thighs as he struggled to catch his breath. 

“I…ran…all the way…from…the Village.” Eiji coughed and straightened up, his eyes wide and then welling with tears as his other half drew closer. He took off the sunglasses and wiped at his wet face, his heart pounding in his ears. “Ash. I’m sorry I couldn’t come here before.” In the seven years since Ash’s death, he had avoided the site like the plague. He couldn’t bear to see where _it_ had happened. Eiji sobbed openly now, his chest heaving and not just from the strain of running too many blocks north. “I _wanted_ to. I swear it. You waited for me. I knew you would.”

Ash closed the distance in half a second, sweeping Eiji into his arms. For once, he would embrace him _first_. “Eiji.” And now Ash was crying too, bawling like an idiot but he didn’t care how weak and undignified he was; they were the happiest tears he had ever shed, but he didn’t want to look at Eiji, not yet, not yet, it was too much, so Ash buried his face in Eiji’s hair and wept, “You’re here. With me. You told me ‘forever.’ I never doubted you, my Eiji, my Ei-chan.”

Seconds passed as they clutched at each other, ugly crying like two seventh grade girls learning of Justin Bieber’s marriage. Some dead drunken revelers shouted, “Get a room!” when they finally fell to kissing. It was just a hot mess of tears and snot, a violent mashing of lips and teeth and tongues before Eiji stiffened and pulled away enough for both of them to suck in some much-needed breaths and wipe their noses on the backs of their sleeves.

“ _Ei-chan_?” Eiji’s voice was low and soft and tinged with confusion. He wasn’t sure if he had heard correctly. “Did you just call me…Ei-chan?” 

“Heh.” Ash ran his fingers through Eiji’s hair, then rested a palm on his cheek. “You’ve always been such a _baby_ , Ei-chan.” 

Under the glow of a harvest moon, Ash could see Eiji’s expression hardening in a way that he had rarely witnessed in life.

“I’m twenty-eight now, Ash,” Eiji intoned in all seriousness. “I’m a whole decade older than you. Don’t you dare call me Ei-chan.” And with that, Eiji reached down and squeezed Ash’s left ass cheek. “You can call me _niichan_ , Ash- _kun_.”

 _Niichan_. Big brother. “Okay, _old man_ ,” Ash said instead. He raked his eyes over Eiji’s body, hungrily, possessively, then he smirked, “Happy fucking Halloween. Did you just come from the parade in the Village?” It actually _was_ Halloween and the Halloween Day Parade was a long-standing tradition in Greenwich Village. 

There was a silent pause of confusion from Eiji before comprehension dawned. Ash’s snarky zingers often flew over his head in the past, but he was hip to them now. “Whaaat?” Eiji gasped in mock-offense at the insult. He smoothed down the front of his shiny jacket with both hands and declared, “This is the height of fashion!”

A genuine laugh erupted from Ash’s belly. “Is that what Shorter told you?” 

“Sh-Shorter?” Eiji asked, something almost like reverence in his voice. “Ah…Shorter…”

“C’mon.” Ash put his arm around Eiji’s shoulders and led him down the street.

“Where are we going?” asked Eiji.

“Don’t worry,” Ash assured with a kiss on Eiji’s cheek. “You’ll fit right in.”

*** 

Shorter was waiting amidst the crowd milling in front of the former Gothic church, then waving his arms in the air like a madman when he glimpsed the two people trudging along West 20th Street, one as colorful as a Christmas tree, the other in faded red, white, and blue.

“Eiji!” Shorter bounded over to the startled young man and crushed him in a bear hug before pulling back and giving him an enthusiastic once-over. “Boy, are you a sight for sore eyes!”

“Ash says I look like a spazzy homo,” Eiji declared, clearly miffed.

“Way to be totally un-PC on two fronts,” Shorter scolded Ash, punching him in the chest. The two former gang bosses proceeded to tussle on the sidewalk, throwing jabs and uppercuts that were easily dodged as they broke out in grunts and giggles.

“I’m a dead white guy,” Ash snarked as he feinted to his left. “It’s my job to be an asshole.”

Shorter snorted and kicked out his right leg, hooking Ash behind the shin and knocking him off balance. For a muscular guy with a good amount of bulk, Shorter was surprisingly agile. He pounced, throwing his body on top of the lighter man and pinning him down with his weight onto the pavement, where they continued to wrestle to and fro. “You know what?” Shorter called over his shoulder at Eiji. “Ash has no clue how to rock it like us Asian dudes, right Eiji?”

“I don’t understand your jokes,” Eiji laughed, brushing his hands down the front of his pink satin jacket once more with abashed pride. He had bought the jacket for $5 off a sidewalk vendor on Mott Street when Ash had first sent him on a mission to find Shorter Wong. This was after that first kiss in the prison visitors’ ward and Eiji found himself suddenly caught up in a whole new world of danger and adventure. In his inexperienced eyes, donning that shiny jacket with the round rimmed sunglasses seemed like the perfect way to blend in like some cool cat in the crowd. Shorter had spotted him from a mile away in that hideous outfit way back then; Eiji had stood out like some weird glaring mashup of 80s Gay Pride and the Backstreet Boys, but seeing him in that same outfit now made Shorter want to cry tears of nostalgic joy.

Inside Limelight, the dead were got up in various costumes and having a ball, because being dead on Halloween meant no-holds-barred debauchery. Who knows what the hell those saintly teetotalers were doing up in heaven.

“This…I was here before!” Eiji shouted with delight. Indeed, Ash and Shorter and the gang had taken Eiji to the dance club once years ago for a night of rare fun. Nothing had changed, including the music. The cavernous space was loud and packed with wasted club kids wearing tiger and zebra stripe print shirts, black leather and spandex and faux fur. Shorter’s purple mohawk was lost in a sea of dyed and gelled spiked hair, and Eiji was out of his mind with happiness. It was worth it—all the agony of loneliness and aching need—it was worth it for this moment in time shared with two kindred souls who had brought Eiji to life when he had sunk into the darkness of depression. He had come to America and found love and goodness, met people so different from himself and yet so close to his heart. It seemed fitting that the same song he had danced to with Ash and Shorter all those years ago was now blasting through the sound system. The three of them joined the throngs of people on the dance floor, bodies bumping and grinding and jumping to the music, limbs flailing, exuberant happiness soaring higher and higher, until there was nothing but effervescent joy vanquishing every single heartbreak.

_______________ 

Here’s the song our boys dance to at Limelight: [New Order, Bizarre Love Triangle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsMfnow7ZOo)

And now that all 24 episodes of the anime have aired, here's another great AMV by Krystal Kitty featuring [Ash x Eiji](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIvbWN7zIw8)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the manga, Ash never calls Eiji “Ei-chan” but he does call him “niichan” or “big brother” after Eiji tells him to. Of course, Ash always says it sarcastically to tease Eiji, rather than calling him “big brother” out of respect, as Eiji would like. Ibe-san always refers to Eiji as “Ei-chan” because as an older man who is more or less Eiji’s surrogate father, he has the right to use that diminutive ending to show his affection for him. In this fic, I have Eiji and Ash sniping over the “chan” and the “kun” endings as a way to express each boy’s desire to one-up the other. 
> 
> Blanca’s “prediction” in this chapter about Sing marrying Akira is based on Yoshida’s New York Sense, in which there are photos taken by Eiji at the wedding when Sing is 28 and Akira is 18. The marriage is also spoken about in Yoshida's Yasha manga series, where we see Sing six months after the wedding, and in the sequel Eve no Nemuri, which takes place 18 years after Yasha. In this fic, Eiji is already dead before the marriage, but I wanted to make mention of that particular hook-up between Sing and Akira.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please mind the new tags. I'll be adding more tags as I post chapters.

 

“Ash, wake up. Ash. Ash! Baka!” Three hard whacks later, Ash was still fast asleep. “You’re worse than before,” Eiji muttered under his breath.

It was almost noon and they were in their old condo on 59th Street—the one Ash had bought with Dino’s filthy lucre—and the place was badly in need of new décor, especially the kitchen with its hideous salmon pink color scheme. Its current owner was some mob boss from the Ukraine who had never even stepped foot inside the place, having purchased it sight unseen as an investment. It wasn’t uncommon for a building in a prime location to have few actual inhabitants. There was so much money in China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and the UAE that it had to go _somewhere_ and, in cities like New York and London, it went into real estate. If Ash had lived, he could have sold the place for way more than the $8 million he had paid for it and they could have burned Dino’s cash just to spite him. But Dino was dead and so was Ash and…so was Eiji, so they had no need of money anyway. What they _did_ need was a plane going to Japan, and that plane was leaving JFK in three hours.

Eiji smacked Ash over the head with a pillow one more time, then pulled the duvet off the bed, hoping the rush of colder air would rouse him. Ash merely grunted, his jaw falling slack as he sunk into deeper sleep. The sight of Ash sprawled naked on the sheets made Eiji’s pulse quicken, his cock twitch in his trousers. _My sad neglected cock_ , Eiji bemoaned silently. He didn’t want to think about his even sadder virgin ass. 

They had left Limelight at 2:00 am ten hours ago. The dance floor had turned into a seething mosh pit and Shorter was shirtless and surfing on his back across an ocean of dead people as Pantera’s _Cowboys from Hell_ blasted through the speakers and shook the building down to its masonry foundation. Ash and Eiji were both drenched in sweat, Eiji’s sunglasses stomped to bits under too many pairs of Doc Martens—how Shorter managed to keep his Wayfarers on and intact was a mystery— and it seemed like the right time to leave and…reconnect in a more private setting. There was nothing like Phil Anselmo’s manly howling screeching grunting voice to put one in the mood for intimacy. 

“Let’s go,” Ash had said, his pupils blown wide against the green of his irises.

“Yes. Yes!” Eiji’s heart had thumped wildly, visions of kissing and fondling and groping swirling in his head. How many times had he dreamt of this? Of course, he had cried, too. Lots and lots of crying, but as much as the crying had been the fantasizing. The thoughts would creep up on him at the oddest times—when he was making dinner in the kitchen, or riding the subway, or developing film in the darkroom—they would creep up and tap him on the shoulder, then wend their way down his chest and into his pants. It wasn’t filthy, no. Anything to do with Ash…it couldn’t be filthy. It was always beautiful, so beautiful and…hot. Yes, so very hot.

Much to Eiji’s surprise, Ash had taken them back to the condo, and yet it felt comforting to go back to a familiar place, a place in which they had shared a year of cohabitation. It all came rushing back as soon as Eiji had stepped into the lobby, then ridden the elevator up, then walked down the hallway and through their door. _That_ is where they used to eat breakfast and read the paper, and over _there_ is where they would sit and chat with Alex and Bones and Kong, and in _there_ is where they would sleep…in separate beds.

But they hadn’t fallen into either bed, not at first. They had stripped out of their sweaty clothes and gotten into the shower instead, and in the shower is where they had embraced, mouths on each other like ravenous animals, only to have it all end too quickly. They had grasped each other’s cocks and just four or five tugs later they had finished all over each other, legs shaking, panting into the steamy air of the bathroom and trying and failing to make excuses for such lack of stamina. 

“Heh,” Ash had laughed, sheepish. “It’s been awhile since…” 

“I know,” Eiji had said, hoping to save face for both of them. “Me too.”

They had snuggled up in one bed for once, hair still damp, kissing and touching each other but not saying much. It was too soon, the feelings still too raw and painful to put into words. It had been such a long wait—a torturous trial by fire of separation and deprivation—and the wounds were tender and open. It would take time for them to heal. So they had kissed and touched and cried and told themselves that they had all the time in the world to finally be together. The problem was, the flight schedule at JFK waited for no one, and Eiji’s parents and sister, along with Ibe and Akira, were leaving for Japan and Eiji was determined to fly back with them with Ash in tow. He had always wanted to take Ash to his hometown of Izumo and now was his chance. But first, he had the daunting task of waking Ash up in the morning.

“Ash!” Eiji yelled once more. He contemplated dragging him into the shower and turning on the cold tap. It had worked before and Eiji smiled at the recollection. He had made Ash shrimp and avocado salad that day, then Ibe-san had paid them a visit with Max. Good times. Shrimp and avocado salad would have to wait, though, as Eiji grabbed the sheets and yanked hard on the linen and pulled them along with Ash onto the floor. Ash landed with a dull thud, then curled onto his side in a fetal position and started _snoring_. “Hontōni?” Eiji murmured in Japanese, flabbergasted. _Are you kidding me?_ He stared down at the prone figure, face scrunched in dismay, before those all-too-familiar, not-so-innocent thoughts crept into his head. If falling on the floor wasn’t enough to wake him, then…

The clothes stayed on. Not that Eiji hadn’t thought of stripping naked, but if Ash did happen to waken suddenly and found Eiji spooned against him in his birthday suit, well, that would be…awkward. So Eiji laid down on the floor behind Ash and threw an arm lightly around Ash’s bare shoulders. “Just keeping you warm,” Eiji whispered. He wriggled his crotch right up against Ash’s bottom, and that slight movement made his hand drop down to Ash’s chest, where his fingers just happened to brush against a nipple. Oh well, can’t ignore that now, right? Within seconds the nipple had turned into a hard nub beneath the gentle caress of Eiji’s index finger and thumb and Eiji couldn’t fight the giggle bubbling up from his throat. Gosh. Ash would throw a conniption if he knew.

The soft snores, low and steady, coming from Ash made Eiji feel brave. He dared to kiss Ash, pressing his lips to his shoulder blade and planting a chaste smooch. Then boldness overtook him and Eiji traced the shape of a heart onto Ash’s smooth warm skin with the tip of his tongue. He blew lightly on the wetness and felt Ash shiver just a little before he settled back into stillness with a snuffle. Aww. “Kawaii,” Eiji murmured into the back of Ash’s head. He pressed his face into his hair and breathed in the honey and verbena scent of Ash’s favorite shampoo; the memory of that scent was almost dizzying.

They were a study in contrasts—Ash’s coloring like a summer day, all gold and green, and Eiji’s like an autumn night, rich in earthy brown and black—but somehow it made good sense, the light of day and the darkness of night, one merging into the other until the end of eternity. Without thinking, Eiji let his hand trail around Ash’s shoulder and then further south and, like a blind man reading Braille, he brushed his fingers slowly over the hills and valleys of Ash’s chest and abdomen, let the scars from blades and bullets tell the story of who he had been: gang boss, murderer, protector, avenging demon, the best friend a boy could ever have. _My heart and soul_. He traversed that expanse of skin with feathery touches until he reached the soft patch of hair surrounding Ash’s slumbering cock. “You’re blond here, too,” Eiji thought, “just like your eyelashes.”

He began gently carding his fingers through Ash’s pubes, face still pressed against his hair and lost in the scent of him, when Ash moaned. Eiji froze, the sound of Ash stirring almost giving him a heart attack. Shit, shit, shit. Except…Ash moaned again. 

“Don’t stop,” came Ash’s voice, raspy with sleep and tinged with impatience. He placed his hand over Eiji’s and wrapped them both around his dick, which plumped immediately in Eiji's warm palm. “Keep going,” Ash said, his hand still guiding Eiji’s as he slowly stroked himself. “Like this…hmmm…” 

“O-Okay.” Eiji could do this. Boy, could he ever! What they had done in the shower had gone by in a blur, both of them too crazed for their orgasms to even register as anything more than a sudden release of tension, but _this_ …Eiji moaned back, falling easily into the rhythm Ash had set. He was used to doing this for himself, but to be able to give Ash pleasure with every twist and tug of his fist held _just_ _so_ around the hard length of his cock was blowing his mind. He pressed closer to Ash, nibbled on his earlobe before sucking the soft flesh into his wet mouth and almost creamed his pants when he felt Ash shiver from head to toe. 

“Ohhh…f-fuuuck…” was all Ash could stutter as Eiji continued bathing the shell of his ear with a hot tongue, then peppering the side of his face with kisses before sucking down on his neck below his jaw. When the hell had he learned to do this? And how did he know where all his erogenous zones were when even Ash didn’t know? Those foggy moments between sleep and wakefulness had been so rare in Ash’s life and even in death. He couldn’t allow himself to slip into a state of carefree relaxation, but Eiji was with him, so he had slept like the dead, for real this time, and for once had drifted slowly to consciousness without the adrenalin rush of fear drumming in his veins. The walls were down, walls that had been the barrier between his sanity and the world he had known. He had been manhandled, assaulted, beaten, kicked, punched, raped, and every touch had filled him with loathing and disgust. He had never felt desire or pleasure with any of his abusers; sex was something that had been demanded of him, stolen against his will or forked over in exchange for his life, but no one had ever shown him an iota of tenderness or consideration in return. No one had ever treated him like this, just giving without taking, no one but Eiji. Hadn’t he always?

“Eiji…Eiji…” Ash murmured, breath hitching as Eiji began rubbing the pad of his thumb around the base of his crown, then across the slit before stroking down again. “I’m going to…nngh…going to...” 

“Come for me, Ash,” Eiji whispered into his ear. “You know I love you, my Ash-kun.” He gave one more twist of his wrist and then Ash was spilling hot into his hand, his body jerking and convulsing on the sheet as Eiji held him tight.

“Ah! Ah! Ungh…holy fuck…nnn…Jesus fucking H. Christ…” Ash lay panting for a few moments, letting the euphoria wash over him. Jacking it alone was never this good. With a grunt, he finally turned to face Eiji and found him peering back at him with amusement. “What?”

“Nothing,” Eiji smiled. “Just…I didn’t know you were so religious.” He tapped a finger playfully on the tip of Ash’s nose. “Boop. You’re going to have a good time in Izumo. Izumo is known as the ‘City of Gods,’ remember?”

“Wait. What?” Maybe it was the post-orgasmic brain freeze, but Ash couldn’t follow anything Eiji was saying. 

Eiji sighed dramatically and rolled his eyes. “Izumo, my hometown. I’m taking you. My family is flying back this afternoon and we need to be on that plane.” Ash stared back, mouth slack. “Do you not understand my English?”

“Your English?” Comprehension dawned at last, and along with it came Ash’s snarkiness. “Heh. Your English is as good as my Japanese.”

“Well, then, you’ll do just fine in Japan. I won’t even have to translate for you, Mr. Smarty Pants.” 

It was a 14+ hour flight non-stop from JFK to Narita, Ash calculated, plenty of time for him to brush up on grammar and verb conjugation. He’d had seven years to audit the various Japanese language classes at NYU and Columbia, not that he was going to tell Eiji. No, he was going to surprise the shit out of him. Ash didn’t have an IQ over 200 for nothing. There was one word in Japanese, though, that he had banished from the vocabulary. He would never ever utter the word _sayōnara_ to Eiji again.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

They barely made it to JFK in time to board the plane, the clock ticking as they stood beside the potted plants at the front of their building, hotly debating whether it was faster to jump in a taxi or take the E train instead. It seemed as if time had collapsed through some miraculous means and the heartache of long separation was forgotten, erased by the familiar, comforting habit of bickering like an old married couple. In each of their minds, they could see themselves grey-haired and stooped with age, still arguing over stupid shit, still hopelessly, maddeningly in love.

They lucked out when some guy’s Uber stopped outside their condo heading for the the airport. They felt even luckier when they boarded the plane and discovered that Yut-Lung had bought everyone first class tickets on the JAL flight back to Japan. Eiji’s parents and sister were occupying the three seats at the front of the cabin, while Ibe-san sat behind them next to Akira. The first class seats were so spacious, Eiji and Ash had no difficulty slipping into the empty one next to the window and nestling together like two peas in a pod.

“This is nice,” Eiji murmured as he watched the earth drop away beneath them on take-off.

Ash, who was spooned against him and gazing out the window, too, agreed. “Yeah.” 

The only other time Ash had been on a plane was when he and Max and Ibe-san, along with Alexis Dawson, were brought back to New York from Los Angeles by the Lee clan, to be given over as prisoners to Dino. _This_ flight was so much better in every way and the irony of Yut-Lung having a hand in both trips was not lost on Ash; it just didn’t hurt anymore. It was time to leave the pain of the past behind him. Besides, he had Eiji in his arms and Eiji’s hair was tickling his face and making him want to cry, he was so happy. That is, until Eiji turned from the window and noticed that Akira was lounged out on her leather upholstered seat watching a music video on the iPad provided to each first class passenger. Little did Ash know that Eiji was a bit of an otaku when it came to old school K-Pop. _Keep Your Head Down_ was one of Eiji’s favorite TVXQ songs post-breakup of the once five-member group, and he watched avidly along with Akira.

“Ash,” Eiji said suddenly, his eyes lighting up with excitement, “now that they’re a duo, we should dress up as them next year for Halloween. We can be in the parade!” 

Ash leaned over, craning his neck around Eiji’s shoulder for a better look at the screen. “What? You want to dress up like some Asian Dracula?” He couldn’t fathom Eiji’s enthusiasm for Halloween and he was still kicking himself for revealing that embarrassing pumpkin incident to him. What had ever possessed him to tell him such a tale? But that was Eiji’s special gift: he had a way of tearing down his walls, soothing his anxiety until he was spilling his guts about anything and everything, and that included his abject fear of pumpkins and his subsequent dislike of Halloween. Damn it!

“Shorter is right,” Eiji declared, brows furrowed in dismay. “You have no fashion sense.” 

“Yeah, well,” Ash shot back in self-defense, “Shorter doesn’t even need to dress up for the Halloween Day Parade. He can just go as himself: Mr. I’m-Stuck-in-the-80s. Fashion sense my ass.”

When Akira started singing “Waaaaeeee?” along with Changmin, Eiji nodded with approval. He had assumed that a teen girl like Akira would be more into BTS or Super Junior, but she obviously had a thing for mature men, preferring TVXQ and SHINee and Shinhwa to the newer groups.

“I’ll be Yunho, of course,” Eiji told Ash, “because he’s the older one. You can be Changmin.”

“Which one is Changmin?” Eiji pointed to Changmin with his smooth chest peaking from black leather and Ash snorted. “Oh my god, I am so digging his _Final Fantasy_ hairdo. And what’s with those shoulder pads? I could play football in those.”

Eiji landed a playful jab of his elbow in Ash’s ribs. “You have much to learn besides being sarcastic, Mr. I-Want-to-Be-River-Phoenix.”

“Oh, yeah?” snarked Ash. _What’s wrong with wanting to be River Phoenix? River Phoenix was a god!_ He nipped lightly at Eiji’s ear. “Like what?”

“Like how to respect your elders.” And with that, Eiji pulled Ash onto his lap and gently caressed his cheek. “In Japan, big brothers take care of their little brothers, and little brothers always do what their big brothers tell them to do.”

“Well, we’re not in Japan.”

“Mmm…we’re not in America either.” The large monitor at the front of the cabin showed that the plane was currently flying over the Atlantic Ocean, at least another twelve hours before they reached their destination, which meant plenty of time for…Eiji brought his arms around Ash’s slim waist, squeezing him lightly before letting a hand rest on his thigh. 

“Even so,” Ash said, suddenly a little breathless as his pulse sped up, their faces just inches apart. Eiji’s eyes were deep black pools in which he wanted to drown himself. “I’m the one with more experience.” He pressed the button on the armrest and lowered the chair back until they were in a reclining position. Eiji was smiling at him as they stretched out side-by-side, their chests and thighs bumping together as they jostled and then threw their arms around each other, legs tangled. “I’m going to teach you a thing or two, _niichan_.”

In two seconds they forgot about Akira sitting next to them, or Ibe-san on the other side of her, or Eiji’s parents and sister in front of them. Only the other dead riding in the cabin could see them, and those other dead were all members of the Mile High Club apparently because there was plenty of hanky-panky going on to the total obliviousness of the living. They fell to kissing, letting their tongues roam freely in each other’s mouths, exploring, tracing along lips and teeth. There was plenty of moaning and groaning around them and they added to the sounds of intimacy with their own sighs and gasps of pleasure. Even as they pressed their bodies together, rubbed and touched and caressed, there seemed too much space between them. Ash rucked up Eiji’s blue button down shirt, pulled up his own t-shirt so he could feel him skin-on-skin, ground his hips into Eiji's so he could feel how hard they both were. It felt so good, so good with Eiji.

“I want you so bad...” Ash panted into his mouth, voice rough and strained with need as he continued kissing into him, “…wanted you for so long. I want to eat you up, swallow you down, make you mine, make you stay. I want to get inside you…in your head…in your heart…in your body…and never leave.”

As if on cue, the lovely airline stewardess appeared pushing the food cart. Dinner trays were set before the passengers and it was only then that they realized they had been at it for almost two hours. Eiji was pretty sure his balls were blue but he couldn’t imagine doing anything about it with Akira eating her soba noodles next to them now. The idea of ‘relieving’ themselves in the bathroom was too gross knowing that there had probably been other dead and maybe a few living who had beaten them to the punch already. Ugh!

“My tongue is sore,” Eiji said.

Ash smirked. “Is that the only thing killing you?” He was still achingly hard in his jeans, but the smell of food and the opening of little bottles of wine and the uptick in conversation surrounding them helped to pull him out of his lust-drunk haze.

“Maybe we should wait until everyone goes to sleep,” suggested Eiji. He tugged down his shirt and pushed the button to raise their seatback to an upright position. Ash’s hair was wildly disheveled and Eiji could only think that his own was in equal disarray. He reached over and smoothed Ash’s hair, then patted down his own. He wanted to ask, “How do I look?” but thought better of it, thank goodness, because who knows what Ash would have said? _Like you want to be drilled?_  That Ash may have made such a cringe worthy comment was too much for Eiji's modesty, so Eiji just said, “We’ve waited this long…and I’m not going anywhere.” He kissed Ash again to reassure him. “I’m so glad I’m dead. With you.” The guilty look in Ash’s eyes made Eiji grasp Ash’s hand and bring it up to his mouth to kiss. “What?” he asked. 

“Your family is pretty broken up about you,” Ash commented. At the funeral service, Eiji’s mother and sister had cried and even Eiji’s father had dabbed at his eyes, though he had kept a stoic expression. Ibe seemed much worse off, hiding his face behind a handkerchief while Akira wept openly, and they weren’t even blood relatives.

“You were at my service?” Eiji asked with surprise.

"Of course. So was Shorter, and Griff, and Skip."

“Oh. Was it nice?” 

Was it nice? _I wanted you to live_ , Ash thought. _I wanted you to be happy_. “Yeah. It was beautiful.”

Eiji gazed at his parents sitting in front of him, at his younger sister who had always loved him. They were eating and chatting in their plush seats and Eiji was grateful to Yut-Lung for being so generous. “They’ll be fine,” Eiji said. “Even if they’re a little sad right now, they’ll get over it. They had me around a lot longer than I had you.” Eiji squeezed Ash’s hand again. “Besides, I think they were kind of disappointed in me towards the end.”

“Disappointed?” Ash couldn’t imagine anyone being disappointed in Eiji. 

“Yes. They wanted me to get married…” 

“So, why didn’t you?”

Eiji looked at Ash like Ash had grown an extra head. “Are you crazy? You’re the only one I would have ever married.”

Now it was Ash’s turn to be flabbergasted. “Eiji…you are so weird sometimes.” And then Ash burst into tears. Death wasn’t so bad after all, not if it meant _this_.

_______

Here's the TVXQ video that Akira was watching: [TVXQ, Keep Your Head Down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djJb5iSL0Do&list=RDdjJb5iSL0Do&index=1)

Full disclosure: I love everything about this video: the great hair, make-up, fashion, brilliant choreography, "Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" inspired sets, the Michael Bay-level fire and explosions. The song itself and militaristic beat are also fantastic. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The mangaka has said that Ash's character design is based on the actor River Phoenix, who died tragically of a drug overdose. I thought I'd work that detail into this fic, not the drug overdose, but the similarity in appearance.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's taken me a few weeks to update to this fic, but life has been too busy lately.

Being dead was a weird thing. Ash had already had seven years to get used to the bizarre dreamlike existence—dreamlike only because the dead retained all the memories accumulated in life, the _realness_ of it, while simultaneously having no impact on reality itself—and he had slowly come to terms with both his guilt over killing countless people and his rage towards those who had violated him. He knew this to be so because even Dino, whom he would run into here and there in the city, no longer evoked any fear or anger in him. He was just an old man who had tormented him in the past and was now rendered impotent in death. That Dino had killed Colonel Foxx and saved Ash for purely selfish reasons did count for something. Certainly not redemption, because there was no atoning for the crimes Dino had committed against Ash, but it was perhaps the last perverted act of love from a man who believed in his own godlike power. When Ash thought about the evil perpetrated against him and the evil he himself had inflicted on others, it seemed then that two wrongs could make a right in some twisted way.

“The ancient Egyptians believed that at the end of a man’s life, his heart was weighed on a scale against a feather,” Ash told Shorter once during one of their evening rooftop chats. “Those who did good during their life had light hearts, those who did bad had heavy hearts. If your heart weighed more than the feather, then your spirit wouldn’t be allowed to enter into the afterlife. You were toast.”

Shorter’s response was to crinkle his nose, give it a thoughtful scratch. Ash was always reading books at the library instead of going to the movies or strip clubs with him. The guy could be so freaking boring when he wasn’t murdering people, but Ash was quirky that way. Even during their time in reform school, Ash liked to read books, and that had never changed. Shorter wasn’t interested in intellectual pursuits—outside of parsing the physics of Neo’s sick moves in _The Matrix_ or how warp speed actually worked on _Star Trek_ —but he wasn’t stupid either. He considered himself to be naturally bright, even if he had had his brain removed in life, so he had no trouble conjuring up the image of a feather and a heart on a scale. He’d seen images of that at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Egyptian wing of the building, scenes inked on papyrus or carved in bas-relief on limestone of a jackal-headed god doing the very thing that Ash spoke about. 

“That must have been one heavy motherfucker,” Shorter decided.

“My heart?” asked Ash.

“No, sheesh.” For all his geeky knowledge, Ash could really be dense sometimes. Shorter peered through his sunglasses at Ash and answered him like an algebra teacher exasperated over a student’s inability to solve for X. “The _feather_ , you idiot. It must have been made out of lead or something…” Ash was staring back at him, confused, and now Shorter was really out of patience. “Oh, for shit’s sake, we’re both here aren’t we? And if we’re here in the afterlife, then that feather must have weighed a _ton_.”

Well, Ash couldn’t argue with that kind of logic. If he was here with Shorter and Dino and Arthur and a boatload of other people who had led criminal lives, then maybe he should finally let all his guilt and self-loathing slip away. The people he had shot, the blood on his hands…perhaps he had been forgiven, perhaps that feather had been heavy enough to balance all the weight of his evil deeds.

Morality aside, nothing could kill him now as far as he knew. He was already _dead_ , after all, but he did _feel_ things, tactile, visceral things experienced through the five senses, and emotional things, things like longing and jealousy and regret. It was those things rooted in his psyche that filled him with anxiety, even if he didn’t want to admit it, and it unnerved him when he realized that certain fears and doubts had remained with him, followed him like a shadow into death, or like a brand burned onto his soul.

Going with Eiji to Japan was something that he had wanted to do while he was alive, so in many ways the trip was like a dream come true. He couldn’t help but remember the words he had spoken to Ibe-san the night he had left the condo, knowing he might not ever see Eiji again. He had told Ibe-san that he would like to go to Japan one day, see the country that had given birth to Eiji, the sweetest, purest boy he had ever met, and maybe redeem himself somehow, make himself into something good enough to deserve such a boy’s love and devotion. That had been wishful thinking, of course, and maybe more than a little dishonest since Ash knew he wasn’t going to Japan at all, he was going to turn both Alexis Dawson and himself over to Yut-Lung and Dino that very same night and that would be the end of it. Except it wasn’t.

Over and over, fate intervened somehow. There was always another escape, another gun battle, another wound patched up before the cycle of violence would begin again. There were exit ramps along the way, oases in the desert: Blanca offering to take him to the Caribbean for a life of oblivion under the sun, Eiji’s letter and plane ticket to Japan, but to Ash they were mirages, things too good to be true. Rather than take that leap of faith, he had decided, “I am happy enough.” Eiji loved him; he wouldn’t be greedy for more.

Except, it wasn’t enough after all. What he felt in death wasn’t, “I’m so happy Eiji is safe,” but rather, “I’m so fucking lonely without him!” And then it was only downhill from there. In death, even the most delicious looking pastry tasted like sawdust, and what had made so much sense in life was utterly stupid in death. Shorter had been right all along. Shorter wouldn’t have let Eiji live on in misery; when the time came, Shorter was willing to kill Eiji, slash his throat in front of Dino so he wouldn’t have to suffer, but Ash had fucked up royally.

“You knew to put a bullet through my heart,” Shorter told Ash years ago. “You should have let Eiji stay with you in New York, or you should have gone with him to Japan. Makes no difference _where_ you die, at least you would have died together.”

Damn that Shorter, dropping all those truth bombs after the fact. It was a hard pill to swallow, and the years of separation had proven to be a rather merciless journey. It wasn’t over yet. There was still so much to endure, so many fears to confront, so much to learn about himself and Eiji, too.

When Eiji died, Ash had felt it as surely as a sledgehammer smashed into his chest, and in that moment of breathtaking shock, Ash had wondered, “Did my mother feel this when I died?” The truth was, Ash didn’t know where his mother was, what had happened to her, whether she was dead or alive. He wondered if he would even know her if he saw her. On a ferry ride to Long Island, Eiji had told him that his mother must have loved him. She had named him. Would a woman even name a baby if she _didn’t_ love it? No, she loved him, Eiji had insisted. She named him Aslan, a name that meant ‘dawn,’ and what did the word signify but the hope a brand new day could bring into the world? It was the first time Ash had ever considered it, the fact that he had been loved. Oh, Eiji, who else would tell him such a thing? And now Eiji was dead.

Then, Ash had gone to find Shorter and told him, “Eiji’s finally coming to me.” And Shorter had smiled a sad smile, opened his arms and the two of them had cried, clutching each other like lost orphans, the pain and the joy swirling about them like a tornado.

“It’s too soon,” Shorter had said to Ash. And then, “It’s been too long.”

Too soon. Too long. That was their relationship in a nutshell: the whirlwind of that year together, the intensity and ache of first love amidst a hail of bullets, then the almost endless slog through loneliness and regret. When Eiji died suddenly, Ash was almost giddy with excitement. He gathered his dead friends and they sat in the church and listened to the living speak of Eiji. It was good. Then Ash had waited, spending days sprawled atop one of the marble lions in front of the New York Public Library until Eiji finally showed up. There was Limelight, the condo, the plane ride…and now they were in Japan, where they had ridden the bullet train, gone to cafes featuring cats, owls, even hedgehogs, visited a village full of semi-tame foxes, an island populated only with rabbits, and saw more temples and shrines than Ash could even remember, where they said prayers and wrote wishes on pieces of paper, and amassed a collection of _omamori_ —for success, to ward off evil, for traffic safety, for happiness, and for love, of course—and there was even the trip to Eiji’s old high school and university, where Eiji showed Ash the practice fields where he had trained and competed in his sport. He took Ash to the very place where he had sprained his ankle, the injury that had sent Eiji into a downward spiral of depression.

“At the time,” Eiji said, “I thought it was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.”

They were sitting on a bench watching lanky young men pole vaulting. Ash still couldn’t believe that Eiji had managed to clear that wall with a rusty old pipe.

“Yeah,” Ash laughed, “and then you came to America and met me and found out that things could only get worse.”

Eiji leaned over and kissed Ash on the cheek. “No, Ash. That’s when I met you and finally knew what it was to live, what it was to be alive and to love someone.”

They had been in Japan for two weeks. The first week they stayed in Tokyo and immersed themselves in all the craziness offered in the districts of Shinjuku, Roppongi, Shibuya, Harajuku, and Akihabara. For the second week, they stayed in Eiji’s hometown of Izumo visiting all the shrines and sleeping in his old room, which Eiji's mother was using as her space to make one-of-a-kind handbags out of old T-shirts and baskets and various other accessories for the fashionable young Japanese lady. She had an e-store and her crafts were selling like hotcakes. 

“I can’t believe your mom is so entrepreneurial,” Ash said with admiration. He and Eiji were sprawled on the floor in the corner of the room, watching her work as she listened to a classical music station on the radio. There were pictures of Eiji hanging in the room, photographs taken by Ibe-san of Eiji pole vaulting when he was in high school. One of them was the photo that had won Shunichi critical success. In that photo Eiji hovered in the air like a bird in flight, his dark hair wild about his face, his body almost boneless as it curved around the horizontal pole, perhaps a centimeter of space between the pole and his tank top, his expression sublime. Ash gazed at the Eiji in the photo—the soft and steady sound of scissors cutting into cotton fabric mixing with an Étude by Chopin playing on the radio—and then at the Eiji sitting next to him, his expression equally sublime, and those two Eiji’s converged with the Eiji in Ash's memory from that day as the sun rose in the sky above that barbed wire-topped wall, the Eiji who had flown to freedom and taken Ash’s heart with him, high into the sky where nothing but the rays of the sun could touch him. Eiji. “Tonight,” Ash swore to himself, tears threatening behind his eyes, “tonight I’ll make you mine.”

_________

There is so much incredible fan art featuring our boys. Here's another lovely video of [Ash x Eiji](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_OsYanB4cE)

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter wasn't too confusing. Let me know if it's hard to follow and I'll try to fix it.


	15. Chapter 15

“We should go to Kyoto for a few days,” Eiji said. “The hot springs are famous there. We can stay at an _onsen_. After that, we can go back home.”

“Izumo,” Ash stated. He kissed the back of Eiji’s head, letting his hair tickle his face as he held Eiji in his lap. It was becoming an addiction for Ash, pressing his face into Eiji’s hair and mouthing at the silky strands. The sensation of it against his skin, his lips, was soothing and he craved it more and more, that and the warm weight of Eiji’s body tucked into his. They were sitting on a chair next to the counter with the rice cooker steaming away, having followed Eiji’s mother into the kitchen at Ash’s insistence to watch her prepare dinner. She was at the stovetop frying vegetable tempura in a mixture of peanut and sesame oil, deftly turning the pieces of taro and sweet potatoes with a long chopstick just the way Ash had seen Eiji do in his New York apartment.

 _Eiji’s mother taught him how to cook_ , Ash thought to himself. It made his heart ache. He squeezed Eiji tighter and wondered what his own mother would have taught him if she hadn’t abandoned him. Would she have taught him how to cook? Blanca had showed Ash how to make beef stroganoff once, and then he had demonstrated how to kill a man with a single blow to the solar plexus but, aside from Shorter and Skip and Ash’s fellow gang members, Blanca was the closest thing he ever had to family after Griffin went off to war. When Ash found Griffin after the war, his brother didn’t even recognize him, and when Blanca offered to take him back with him to the Caribbean, Ash had rejected his overture. What was family, after all, to a boy like Ash? All he had ever known was an absentee mother, a bitterly negligent father, a sick power hungry freak like Dino whom Ash had refused to call “Papa,” a brain damaged brother, an assassin with a heart of gold, other murderous gangbangers. It was all he could hope to have until he met Eiji, and then his world changed. Since coming to Japan, his eyes had opened further. The Eiji he had met in New York had lived a previous life halfway across the world, he had grown up in a real family, in a real home, he had been someone else and Ash wanted to know him, this pure, untainted boy, and he wanted Eiji to teach him what it was to be normal, to live a decent life.

All week long Eiji’s family had received visitors to their home: relatives, neighbors, friends of Eiji from high school and university, people bringing gifts of food and flowers along with their condolences. The priceless jade funerary urn was set on a table in an alcove in the living room next to the urns holding the ashes of Eiji’s grandparents, framed photos of the deceased hung on the wall above the table. Guests would light incense and clap their hands before saying a silent prayer. It was a beautiful way to pay their respect to Eiji’s memory and it made Ash happy to see how well-loved Eiji had been. He hadn’t been able to claim Griffin’s body after Abraham Dawson had shot him. Ash was on the run from Dino, on bail from prison and couldn’t come out of hiding, couldn’t give his brother a proper burial. Not that Griffin held it against him. Even in death, he was still not quite there, just a calmer, happier shell of himself with the occasional lucid moment; his mind and memories had been irrevocably altered by that demon drug. Thank god Shorter had died so soon after being injected with Banana Fish or he might have ended up like Griffin, too far gone to ever come back to his old self.

Ash didn’t need to worry about Griffin, though. Shorter and Skip were looking after his brother while he was in Japan with Eiji, and after two weeks Ash felt like he was finally getting acclimated to the different sights and sounds and ways of doing things. Even among the dead, cultural differences persisted, etiquette was maintained, social niceties were practiced, like the removal of one’s shoes in the _genkan_ before stepping into a house, which Ash found so amusing. Eiji’s family home was typical for the town. It was built after the Second World War, was modest in size and traditional in construction, set back from the main road and hugging a hillside, with the back of the house facing onto a small patch of level land planted with plum trees. It was autumn and the fruit had already been harvested at the end of summer. Ash could see the green plums floating in glass jars in the open pantry, steeping in a mixture of _shochu_ and sugar. The plums in the jars from last summer had turned a golden yellow, the sweet and sour _umeshu_ ready to drink.

Life here was so foreign and strange. Tokyo pulsated with even more crazy energy than New York, but Izumo was off the beaten path, with the entire population equivalent to less than one city block in Manhattan it seemed. When they first arrived, Eiji had taken Ash to his hometown’s most famous shrine—Izumo Ōyashiro—the oldest Shinto shrine in all of Japan and one dedicated to the god Ōkuninushi, the deity of happiness and marriage. It was at this shrine that Eiji’s sister had bought the _omamori_ she had sent with him to New York. Eiji had showed that good luck charm to Ash years ago on the rooftop of one of their safehouses and admitted that he was worried about his parents and his sister. _He misses his home, his family_ , Ash had thought at the time, and the guilt had stabbed at his gut, but not enough to make him let Eiji go. No, by then he had stopped trying to deny his own selfish desire to keep Eiji by his side. He was willing to risk everything, until…it all backfired. Eiji was shot right in front of his eyes and all he could do was empty his clip into the dead assailant, a whole lot of good that did. And even then, even as Eiji lay bleeding on the floor as Ash’s heart pounded and shattered inside his chest, all Eiji cared about was Ash’s own safety.

“Ash? Are you okay? Good…” Eiji had said before he lost consciousness.

That guy. That was Eiji in a nutshell, always thinking of Ash first with not a care to his own welfare. How could Ash make it up to him? It seemed impossible. Would his aching love for this boy be worthy of what Eiji deserved to have? Eiji could have easily let Sing take Ash’s place. Sing would have been a loyal and probably way less fucked up lover than Ash could be, but Eiji had denied himself everything—companionship, marriage, sex, passion—all for a dead man who had made some very bad decisions. 

And now Eiji was gazing at him with surprise and confusion. “Izumo?” Eiji turned his head to look Ash in the eyes, his face lighting up with a smile. “No, no, silly.” Then he peppered Ash’s forehead and cheeks with kisses. “New York, not Izumo. My home is with you, Ash. Wherever your heart is, I will be, too.”

“Oh.” Ash couldn’t help but stare back at Eiji in wonder. How did he do it? How did Eiji look into his heart and find the truth, how did he look into his soul and show him what was really there: a lonely, frightened boy who had run away to a concrete jungle and turned feral, become a deadly beast still yearning for what might have been if only things had been different. He had met his soulmate, Ash knew that for certain, but he had no idea how to take the next step. He had never met anyone who made him feel like this, wanting and grasping and reaching for someone who, in his dreams, was always so close and yet always taken away from him. He couldn’t bear to lose him. Even in death, he couldn’t bear to lose his one and only. So many walls had come down; Eiji stood in a place no one else had ever occupied in Ash’s heart, but this was all new territory for Ash, too, and he had no one to guide him. He’d had tons of sex in his life, he knew how to do it, but he had never once allowed himself to _feel_ anything, the act itself was so repulsive. Even if he was the one initiating the seduction for his own survival, his mind and body was shut down, turned off, it was the only way to endure the violation and go on living. But now, he _wanted_ ; for the first time, he wanted someone, wanted him so badly he could die if he weren’t already dead, and he didn’t know what to do! He didn’t want to have sex with Eiji, he wanted to make love with him, and he didn’t know how to take that final leap into the void, not when it actually mattered and meant so much. Could his heart even stand it, and when all was said and done, would Eiji still love him back?

***

That night, in the quiet of Eiji’s old room, Ash finally worked up the nerve to ask, “Do you want to do it?” They had kissed and jerked each other off enough times now to know this was no passing phase, but it had always been quick and even furtive if they were in public, where the living were unaware of their antics but the dead could see them rolling around under some tree in the park in an amorous embrace. Sure, they were mostly clothed, but they were still going at it like horny fifteen-year-olds.

“Do it?” Eiji asked, his gulp audible in the screaming silence between them. He might be a virgin by choice, but he wasn’t ignorant. Though he was stunningly naïve when he first met Ash, he was far worldlier now after years of living and working in New York. He knew what sex was, what it could be with a girl or a boy, and he knew they had both been holding back all this time. What he wanted with Ash was _everything_ , but he would ask for _nothing_ except what Ash was willing to give of his own volition. How could he push and prod him when he knew what had happened to him, all the men who had used and abused him? He wouldn’t be one of _them_ , and if Ash had told him, “Don’t ever touch me,” he would have accepted it. His balls might have exploded, but he would have accepted it nonetheless. “You mean…” Eiji whispered, “…are you sure?”

“Shit.” Ash slapped his hands over his face, his heart beating wildly in his chest. He couldn’t breathe. He needed a cold shower. He’d been able to let the most disgusting clients at Dino’s establishment have their way with him, but now that he was with someone he actually cared about and desired, he was falling apart, completely losing it. What was this, anyway? An anxiety attack? He’d been on the brink of death so many times and had felt perfectly calm, so why was this happening? “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Ash said finally, his voice shuddering in his throat. “God, Eiji, you must hate me.”

“It’s okay, Ash.” It was dark in the room but there was enough moonlight shining through the window to illuminate Ash’s hair, which shone silvery in the cool dimness. Eiji stroked it, pressed his body close to Ash, gently lifted his hands away from his anguished face. “I don’t hate you. Don’t ever say that. You know I love you. You know I could never love anyone else.”

“Why? You could have had so much better. You could have stayed in Japan and married a nice girl, had a happy life. You could have had kids…little brats that looked like you and—”

Eiji shut him up with a kiss, a kiss like the one Ash had given him that very first time, only this time it wasn’t an excuse, a way to pass a message hidden in a capsule, it was for real, the kind of kiss that _lovers_ exchange. “You’re the only brat I’ll ever need. And if you go on talking like that, then I’ll have to keep kissing you until you believe me. Would you like that, Ash-kun?”

The slow hot presses of Eiji’s lips on his mouth, his cheeks, his neck was so different than the rough handling Ash was used to. He had been routinely slapped and punched in some grotesque form of foreplay in the past, par for the course, jeered at if he protested, held down and burned with cigarettes for the amusement of a roomful of sadistic pedophiles, made to kneel naked in front of some bastard as a cock was rammed down his throat until he passed out, choking on the worst that humanity had to offer. It was hard to believe it could be anything but torture, but what Eiji was doing to him…it was good, it didn’t hurt, and gradually, as Eiji kissed his way down his chest, his hands as light as a butterfly’s wings brushing against his bare skin, Ash let himself stay in the moment, the demons from his past relegated to the far corners of his mind. For once, he let himself _feel_. When Eiji took his cock into his mouth, it was just wet heat surrounding him, bathing every inch of his hardness and Ash moaned out, arched his back and carded his fingers through Eiji’s hair. He wouldn’t be afraid, not now, not like this. It wasn’t dirty. Eiji would wash him clean. Eiji loved him. He wouldn’t be doing this for him if he didn’t.

“Eiji…” Ash lifted his head and stared down at Eiji crouched between his thighs, his eyes closed and his expression so full of adoration it finally set Ash free, if only for a moment, to experience the kind of pleasure he could never have with countless others, a pleasure freely given out of love, just for him. Ash came, crying Eiji’s name and spilling into his mouth as Eiji moaned around his cock, drinking him down while he finished in his own hand with a final tug. “Is this…what lovers do?” Ash murmured, his breath ragged. He had sucked off plenty of men for pay, but no one had ever performed the act on him.

“It’s what _we_ do,” Eiji replied, giggling when Ash took his hand and licked the cum off his palm. “That tickles.”

“What else do we do?” Ash asked, kissing into Eiji so he could taste himself, the salty sweetness of his seed.

“Anything you want. The choice is yours."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Onsen = a traditional Japanese inn, often with a hot spring  
> Genkan = the entryway in which shoes are removed before entering a house  
> Shochu = a white Japanese liquor  
> Umeshu = a Japanese liqueur made with Japanese plums  
> Omamori = a Japanese good luck charm


	16. Chapter 16

“We live in different worlds.”

Ash had told him that time and again as a reason for why they should not, could not be together, as if the differences were an insurmountable obstacle, a wall keeping them separated, and each time Ash had said it, it had cut like a knife. Despite the arguments and the hurtful things said, Eiji never accepted Ash’s claim, never understood the reasoning behind the words. Even if it were true, what did it matter? What did it matter that their skin and hair and eye color were different? What did it matter if they spoke different languages? A soul didn’t need words to understand love, kindness, comfort. A soul only knew its other half, and yearned for it with the innocence and honesty of a child. What did it matter if one lived in the light and the other in darkness? Didn’t Orpheus follow his beloved Eurydice all the way to Hades? And if one could fly, then couldn’t they both soar together?

Perhaps it was naïve to think such things, but that is what Eiji was—naïve—when Ibe-san brought him to New York all those years ago, hoping to give him a new start when his passion for his chosen sport had faltered after the ankle injury. A new place, a new reason to live; Ibe-san wanted to see him fly again. Little did he know he would send Eiji off the cliff and into a truly different world. Ash Lynx was not what Eiji imagined a gang boss to be; he was so young and bold and beautiful, and then he became so much more. It wasn’t just Ash, though, who surprised Eiji. Every thing and everyone in that strange and foreign city had surprised Eiji: little Skip, so much younger than himself and yet years ahead of him in street smarts; Shorter, so willing to befriend him even though he owed him nothing; Sing, who should have hated him but helped him instead. There was so much intensity in that chaotic new world at a time when his own lust for life had ebbed to its lowest point, and it was this same light amidst the darkness that kept him alive after Ash’s death, the light and the darkness that he captured through his camera when each day became a struggle just to breathe, to go on despite every desire to let go.

He and Ash had first talked of visiting Japan the night following that ‘incident’ at the fancy condo. Blanca’s well-aimed shot had been a mere flesh wound on his right shoulder, but Ash had insisted that Eiji rest in bed lest he get a fever. Such a thing would never happen in Izumo. Nobody ever got shot on the street in Izumo, much less in their own home, and Eiji had wanted to turn the tables on Ash, use his own “we live in different worlds” statement as a way to convince him to leave New York for a safer place, a place where people didn’t need guns in order to survive. He had wanted Ash to meet his family and realize that they could have a home together away from all the violence. What irony, that finally bringing Ash to Izumo had left Eiji feeling homesick for New York while Ash was content to spend his days watching Eiji’s mother cooking in the kitchen.

There was one thing that Eiji knew for certain: they needed to go back to New York. New York was Ash’s home in a way that Cape Cod had never been. Cape Cod was where Ash’s mother had abandoned him, where his father had neglected him, where he had been raped for the first of many times. Cape Cod was a place riddled with the most hurtful memories, and Eiji wanted something better for Ash. New York was the scene of painful events, too, but it was also where they had first met, and Eiji wouldn’t trade that for anything. They had met in New York—not in Izumo, not in Cape Cod—and _that_ is where they should be. The good and the bad, the darkness and the light…it all resided in New York for both of them, and there were still so many things to make right.

***

“Are you ready to go home?” asked Eiji.

They were soaking in a hot spring in Kyoto and Ash was sitting on a shallow ledge with his face covered in a wet towel, his head resting on another towel as he leaned against the edge of the pool.

“Hmm?” 

Eiji lifted the towel and repeated, “I said: are you ready to go home?” The blank stare from Ash prompted Eiji to clarify, “New York.”

“New York?” Ash murmured. “What’s the hurry? Wasn’t this your idea?”

Eiji laughed, it couldn’t be helped. Ash in the afterlife was the same and yet different. He was still closed off and moody at times, snarky and brimming with sarcasm if something rubbed him the wrong way, and surprisingly sweet when Eiji least expected. During their meandering walks through Kyoto, Ash would rest his hand on Eiji’s shoulder, or loop an arm around his waist, or hook a finger around one of Eiji’s as they strolled about, and it filled Eiji’s heart to bursting to have that tenuous connection. At night, they would sleep spooned against each other, limbs tangled, the air between them warm and smelling of their mingled scents. How he had wanted this so many times! The memory of Ash being gone all night while he slept alone and fitful with worry in that condo still crept into his thoughts, the pain of it still acute, but nothing could rival the heartache of those nights in the hospital when Ash never came to visit. He knew why—Sing had told him everything later on—but the bruise was not quite gone and a part of Eiji relished it. It made their closeness now feel so much more meaningful. Yet he wondered, and worried, if this weird ‘existence’ they were now experiencing was merely an interlude, a sweet pause on a longer journey, and then…what? Would they each move on to something else after all was truly said and done, once they had made right what was wrong, perhaps? Was time on their side, or was it their enemy? 

“Don’t you miss New York?” Eiji prodded. He wrung the towel out in the hot water and placed it over his own face. “Don’t you miss Shorter…Skip…Griffin?” They had left for Japan so quickly that Eiji hadn’t really had opportunity to spend time with any of them. It occurred to him suddenly that all three had been shot in front of him. He had seen all three mortally wounded with his own eyes. Good god. What was he, some kind of bad luck charm? When there was no response from Ash, Eiji removed the towel and saw that Ash was staring up at the ceiling with its grid of wooden slats. He seemed lost in thought, so Eiji laid his head back and stared up at the ceiling, too. “I saw Lao once. I almost killed him.”

Lao. The object of Eiji’s hatred for years and years. Yut-Lung had sent Lao to Hong Kong after the stabbing to avoid an all-out gang war between Ash’s boys and Sing’s, but the guy still came back to New York’s Chinatown to visit friends and family, including Sing, who couldn’t exactly turn him away. Sing just bore the guilt without complaint. 

“When was that?” Ash asked.

“A year after I came back to New York,” Eiji replied. He took a deep breath and sighed, not too proud of his murderous thoughts. He had been so bitter back then and now, to his surprise, all that bitterness rose up again inside him and into his eyes. “I saw him coming out of that donut shop on Lexington Avenue, the one that Kong and Bones always liked. I was on the other side of the street and I saw him walk out of the shop eating a donut and…I was so _angry_.” His voice broke, but when he felt Ash reach over and squeeze his hand, Eiji went on, “I thought to myself: ‘Why is he alive? Why does he get to live? He killed you and he still gets to live!’ So…I followed him into the subway station. It was crowded and I knew he didn’t see me. Maybe he wouldn’t even remember me, I didn’t care. I was going to wait for the train to come into the station, then I was going to push him onto the tracks. I was going to kill him. I was going to kill both of us.”

There was a long silence, then Ash asked, “What stopped you?”

Eiji wiped his face with the towel and took a deep breath, his heart pounding in his chest. “I thought about my parents, my family, how ashamed they would be if I did something like that. How could they face their friends, their neighbors? They would have to suffer because I was a cowardly murderer. I hated Lao, I wanted him to die, but it would be my family who would suffer and not him. He’d be dead in a second. He wouldn’t feel anything. My family would have to live with the shame of what I had done.” Killing Lao wouldn’t have been like that time they had infiltrated the hotel and gone in guns blazing to rescue Ash. That had been a mission of righteousness. Killing under those circumstances was justifiable in Eiji’s mind. Pushing someone onto the subway tracks was not an act of bravery, even if that someone was Lao. Besides, Eiji had played his own part in Ash’s death, so what gave him the right to take Lao’s life? He was just as responsible in his own mind.

“Eiji.”

He turned his head to see Ash smirking at him. “What?”

“When it comes to killing, you’re hopeless. You know that, don’t you?” Christ, the way Eiji held a gun was laughable; he’d sooner shoot his own foot off than hit an intended target. “And only lunatics push people in front of subway cars.” Ash pressed a kiss to Eiji’s mouth before he could scowl at the insult. His sweet Eiji killing someone was something Ash had never wanted, especially someone like Lao, who was a big fucking nobody in Ash’s book. His death had been Ash’s own doing, he had chosen to die, and the thought that Eiji had tortured himself over it was something Ash had yet to come to terms with but, for now, he would push such depressing things aside. He pulled Eiji onto his lap and kissed him again, kissed him slow and deep until they were both writhing and moaning into each other. “I want you to cum into my mouth,” Ash told him, his breath hot against Eiji’s throat. “Here, sit here.” And with that he lifted Eiji out of the water and onto the heated stone ledge.

There were several dead soaking in the pool with them and as soon as they saw Eiji’s erection waving in the air, there was much eye-rolling and disapproving looks as they exited the pool in unison. That left six other living patrons who were oblivious, but still…

“Uh…Ash, I don’t think we should—”

“Open your legs, Eiji.”

Ash’s low, throaty command rendered him mute and his modesty non-existent. He opened his legs as he was told, his cheeks on fire. Eiji had pleasured Ash with his mouth more than once and he found that it was a huge turn-on for both of them, but this would be the first time Ash would take the initiative with him and Eiji was shocked and a little nervous. He understood the kinds of acts that had been forced on Ash, the things he had endured, and he didn’t know if Ash could ever engage in such intimacy without feeling revulsion.

“Relax, Eiji,” he heard Ash say, “I want this. I want your cock in my mouth.”

Well, okay then. Their eyes locked for a heart-thumping moment and then Ash’s lids fluttered shut as he settled himself between Eiji’s thighs and drew the flat of his tongue from Eiji’s balls up the length of his shaft to swirl around the base of the crown before licking across the slit several times.

“Ohhh…wow…” Eiji sucked in a long breath, fighting the urge to thrust his hips, impatient already for more. The sensation of Ash’s velvety tongue tracing a wet path up and down his cock was maddening, but not as maddening as when Ash finally opened his mouth wide and slowly sucked him down into his throat. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing, every inch of him enveloped in hot wetness, the tip of Ash’s nose buried in his thin patch of pubes as he swallowed him whole. How did he learn to do that? Eiji couldn’t get more than a few inches into his own mouth before his gag reflex kicked in…sheesh…he had so much to learn. That familiar ache coiling in his groin told Eiji he was close. Stamina…he’d definitely have to work on that, too. He reached out and clutched Ash by the hair as gently as he could, his other hand curled into a fist by his side as he fought to hold still. “Ash, I’m going to…” he panted, desperation making his words come out an octave higher than normal, “I’m going to…oh…no…ngh…” Whatever verbal warning Eiji choked out only made Ash take him even deeper into his throat and when Ash hummed an encouraging reply, the vibrations pushed him right over the edge. “Ah! Ah! Ash!” Eiji’s cries echoed in the cavernous space as he collapsed onto his back, gasping in the moist warm air surrounding them, his chest heaving. He felt Ash crawl up and drape himself on top of him, his body a heated wet blanket, his cock rigid against Eiji’s belly. “Do you want me to—?”

“No,” Ash interrupted. “Later.” He leaned down and kissed Eiji, their tongues dancing around each other. “Do you see how good you taste? You’re the only one.”

The men Ash had been with had always made it a point to watch themselves cum on him—be it on his ass, his face, his chest—and Ash had always understood it for what it was: a display of alpha power and dominance. It wasn’t about sex or pleasure, it was about humiliating him, proving to him that he was in a position of weakness and submission. He never orgasmed with them; even if they made him touch himself for their entertainment, he never came for them. It was disgusting—their cum—and something that turned his stomach more than the actual penetration itself. He could handle someone’s filthy cock in his mouth or in his ass—Dino didn’t rent out his merchandise for cheap and clients were required to wear condoms—but when it came to that moment…he hated it…to be ejaculated upon by those perverted scumbags. It made him vomit afterwards every time.

Even when he had escaped those wretched days of working at Dino’s pedo palace—Club Cod—he couldn’t abide the idea of submitting to anyone like that again, of having a man’s body fluids touching his skin. He wasn’t a robot, he was still a human with human needs, but whenever horniness overtook him, he would always jack it in the shower. He wouldn’t look at himself. He’d just do the deed and let the water wash it all away. It wasn’t until he met Eiji that the thought of being sexually intimate with someone had entered his mind. Eiji was so innocent, so pure and clean…and, shit…what a conundrum! All those monsters Ash had been with…wasn’t he one of them, too?

It scared him a little, this desire to be close to Eiji. At first, Ash didn’t know what it was, the feeling that Eiji’s presence evoked in him, but then he came to recognize that Eiji’s touch brought him comfort, warmth, calmness, things that he had lacked for so long he didn’t even know he needed those things. But once he had it, he found he didn’t want to live without it, and even after he died, he still couldn’t live without it.

“I should have done this…so long ago,” Ash whispered. He planted a soft kiss on Eiji’s cheek. All the things he had denied himself just to survive, the feelings he had closed off so he could endure the pain…he would open his soul to his one and only and be whole at last.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I read somewhere that Yoshida, in an interview, confirmed that Lao did not die when he attacked Ash in the final chapter of the manga, so that's how I'm portraying it here. Don't hate me too much.


	17. Chapter 17

Sing kept everything exactly as it was: his furniture, his books, his clothes, which still retained the scent of Eiji’s cologne whenever Sing held one of his T-shirts—invariably screen printed with some weird cartoon bird or nonsensical phrase, Eiji’s taste in fashion had never changed—to his face and breathed him in. It was faint, but he could still smell him, and with that scent came the very memory of him: his soft brown eyes so full of innocence and honesty, his warm smile, his hairless cheeks, the sound of his voice when he was feeling angry, sad, silly. Nothing was thrown out, even the sheets. Sing couldn’t bear to wash them lest he remove a piece of Eiji he would never get back. Instead, he had folded them neatly—the sheets that had covered Eiji when he died—and placed them in a drawer in Eiji’s bedroom dresser. When he felt overwhelmed with sadness, Sing would take out the sheets and spread them on the bed in his room and convince himself that not all was lost. Eiji was in a better place, a place in which his soul mate was with him at last.

“Have you forgotten me, Eiji? What about you, Ash? Are you happy now?”

And Sing would fall asleep in the very same spare bedroom next to Eiji’s old one. In the morning he would make himself breakfast, send a text to Akira, then go to his classes. It was the daily routine that pulled him through those first six months after Eiji’s funeral. He had continued to live in Eiji’s old brownstone, taking on Eiji’s lease. Sing owned a large house on Long Island, but he was only there when he had guests visiting. That place was mainly an investment, a piece of real estate that he would sell in a few years for a shit ton more money than he had paid for it. Yut-Lung had told him to be smart, to earn a business degree and make his way up in the world, to rise to his full potential. It seemed like a joke, that Yut-Lung would actually offer advice that made sense. That lunatic had always been a victim of his own vaunting pride, jealousy, bitterness, and yet he had been genuinely caring after Ash’s death, after Eiji’s death. Did that mean that Yut-Lung had a real heart beating in his chest? Was he actually capable of feeling guilt? 

Sing had forgiven Yut-Lung long ago for his hand in the cascade of events that led to Eiji’s near mortal injury and Ash’s death. Blanca had told Sing after Shao-Tai had shot Eiji under Yut-Lung’s order, “I wish you’d try to forgive him,” and Sing had come to understand why: harboring such resentment would have eaten him up, destroyed him like a poison running in his veins. It was that same poison, that same unwillingness to forgive and forget, that had driven Lao to his final act of retribution. If only Lao had forgiven Ash for killing Shorter…but Sing had never told Lao the truth about Shorter’s death—Ash was so determined to bear that burden all on his own—and so that poison had festered like a wound that wouldn’t heal. It was all such stupidity, and Sing had added to it by challenging Ash to a one-on-one duel, as if that would stop the madness, but stupid acts, like a rotting wound, had a way of infecting everything.

It was the Chinese New Year, and that meant one thing: Lao would be back and Sing would have to put on a brave face. Their parents had been first generation immigrants to America—Sing’s mother and Lao’s mother had been sisters—and the Chinese, no matter where they lived during the rest of the year, always went home to visit with their parents on the New Year, which always fell in late January or early February. Since Lao’s parents were dead and Sing was Lao’s closest living relation, he would be returning to New York, to Chinatown, where Sing was Yut-Lung’s top-ranking lieutenant. In Hong Kong, where Yut-Lung had sent Lao after he had stabbed Ash, he was just a low-level thug for the Baishe syndicate—nothing more than a goon “on loan” to the Liu clan with whom Yut-Lung was hoping to ingratiate himself—running errands, collecting bribes and roughing up those who were late in their payments. He was a big fucking nobody. Under Shorter, Lao had been first lieutenant; even under Sing, he had enjoyed a position of respect. He had been an integral part of the gang until his own fierce loyalty resulted in him being ostracized by the very gang members he had called his family. It was his own doing. He had only wanted to honor Shorter’s memory, his best friend and boss, and then he had wanted to see Sing rise to the top and take Chinatown back. He had only wanted to do what he thought was right by his own people, but Sing had rejected his warnings, rejected his efforts, and Lao had no choice but to leave. Then, he had no choice but to put Ash Lynx down. As long as that demon lived, Sing would be in danger. He couldn’t let Sing fight Ash. As much as he admired Sing’s tenacity, he knew the boy didn’t stand a chance in a one-on-one battle with that wild beast. So he had taken the initiative, he had struck the first blow, and that blow had proved fatal. It was the dumbest thing Lao had ever done in his wasted life.

***

New York in February was a bitch: steel grey skies, bitter cold, an almost ceaseless wind that roared up and down the avenues, the tall buildings acting like a funnel and making the wind so much worse. It wasn’t unusual to see bags whipped right out of someone’s grasp, whatever contents blown into the filthy drifts of slush and ice at the corners of intersections. For Lao, though, it felt good to be back. There’s no place like home, even if home was as welcome as an arctic hell. He was to meet Sing at one of their favorite dim sum places. The dim sum was incomparable in Hong Kong, but Lao had grown up in New York’s Chinatown and there’s just something about the tastes and smells experienced during childhood that etch themselves into one’s psyche that later adult memories cannot overwrite. The dim sum might be ‘better’ or more ‘authentic’ in Hong Kong, but it had more meaning in New York.

Chinese New Year wasn’t the only time Lao had come back home. A distant cousin had died six years ago and he had been allowed to attend the funeral, and one time he had delivered a ‘package’ from Liu Feilong to Lee Yut-Lung at Yut-Lung’s request. He knew it was just Yut-Lung’s way of showing cruelty—to have him transport a banned substance wrapped in plastic and stuffed up his ass—and kindness at the same time, because it did give Lao a chance to see old friends. Even though he was technically out of Sing’s gang, he had grown up with these boys, now men, and they still shared a camaraderie that wasn’t easily tossed aside. They could still sit over drinks and food and bullshit for hours as if nothing had changed. Too bad Lao couldn’t say the same for his relationship with Sing. It wasn’t for lack of trying, but Sing wouldn’t have it. No matter. Family was family, and if Sing wanted to punish him by being obstinate, then so be it. Lao would accept the bitter pill; in his mind, he had done no wrong in attacking Ash and perhaps Sing would open his eyes one day and see that Lao had been the good older brother protecting his own as he should.

The chime rang as Lao shouldered the door open and nodded at the man behind the counter. There was a customer paying for his take-out order, and then Lao was shown into the sparsely appointed dining room. It was nothing like the huge dim sum restaurants in Hong Kong with staff pushing cart after cart of steaming hot dishes. This place, tucked between a dry cleaner and a kitchen supply resale shop on a crummy block off East Broadway, was a dive and it was known less for its dim sum than for the hearty bowls of spicy beef noodle soup with its rich oily broth. Lao couldn’t wait to dig into one of those with extra tendon and red pepper as he took his seat at a table against the wall, dropping his one carry-on duffel onto the chair next to him. He glanced at his watch; he was ten minutes early, but in another minute he saw Sing walk through the entrance, rubbing and blowing at his gloved hands.

“Over here.” Lao waved a thick arm in the air and caught Sing’s eye. He squeezed the younger man in a firm bear hug when he neared, thumping his back and grinning, “Shit, you’ve grown even taller. Th’ fuck have you been eating?” That elicited a chuckle grunted over Lao’s shoulder. It was nice to hear Sing laugh, something he rarely did anymore whenever they saw or spoke to each other. 

“Same old stuff,” Sing replied. “Protein shakes, pork buns, KFC. Those Sauceless Hot Wings are the bane of my existence.” He shook off his coat, stuffing his knit cap into a pocket before sitting across from Lao. “You look good,” he lied.

The fluorescent lighting in the men’s room at JFK wasn’t exactly flattering, but a non-stop flight from Hong Kong to New York would leave most people looking haggard, especially those like Lao who could never sleep on a plane. “Quit shitting me. That flight is a killer in coach. I need a shower and a shave, but first I need to stuff my face. Let’s order.”

They ate and talked about what was happening in Hong Kong, in New York, mundane things like who got offed by whom and for what reason, gossip about who was getting married or divorced; they talked about Sing’s progress at university and his latest business investments.

“You’re going to go far, little brother,” Lao said, the pride evident in his voice. He slurped another mouthful of noodles, then wiped his sweating brow with a napkin, the spicy heat of the dish turning him red in the face. “I always knew you had it in you. Didn’t I tell you: you don’t have to bow down to anyone.” 

It was a compliment, but it sat like a hot coal in Sing’s gut. Even if Lao wasn’t thinking of the past, Sing always was, and any mention of it hurt like hell. It was stupid to let it unravel him. Everyone had a past, everyone had shit to deal with, baggage that was dragged about until one could let it all go. _If_ one ever let it go, and Sing wasn’t quite ready to do that. He often asked himself if shedding the past were as easy as flipping a switch and forgetting everything, would he do it? If he were honest, the answer would still be no. He didn’t want to forget; if anything, he was hoarding the past the same way he was keeping all of Eiji’s belongings, the same way Eiji had kept Ash’s computer and all the photos he had taken of him. Maybe he needed to get his head checked. Lao’s annual visit only made things worse, and this year was going to be even more difficult because he had Eiji’s absence to deal with, too.

Sing had always made sure that Eiji never ran into Lao when his stepbrother visited New York. Fortunately, Eiji would often schedule photo shoots in warmer climes like California during the winter, but Sing would have Lao stay at his mansion on Long Island and ask friends to visit him there, just to be extra careful. He knew how even the _thought_ of Lao would send Eiji into a conniption; god forbid he ever _see_ him. It would have been too much for Eiji to bear. This year, he didn’t have to worry about Eiji running into Lao; Eiji was gone. The parquet floors in Sing’s house were being refinished, however, so Lao would be staying with him at the brownstone in the Village instead. Sing was tempted to put him up in a hotel, but that wasn’t the Chinese way. Asking a close relative to stay at a hotel was tantamount to a total lack of hospitality, it was the kind of rejection you wouldn’t show to a stranger, it simply wasn’t done. The fact that Eiji wouldn’t be there was small consolation to Sing. It was bad enough seeing Lao when Eiji had been alive, but to see him now that Eiji was dead, and even having him stay in Eiji’s old apartment, seemed like betrayal.

All of that was lost on Lao, though, who showed no hesitation in entering the personal space of someone he had been told to kill at one time. Of course, Lao had refused Yut-Lung’s order to murder Eiji, someone he considered harmless and pointless to kill, and that was enough for Lao to wash his hands of all blame. If anything, Lao was almost curious to see Eiji’s home in the city. Sing gave Lao the spare bedroom he normally used while he took the guest room across the hall, the one Akira had used when she had visited the previous summer. That night, after Lao had washed up, they sat in the living room watching one of the pirated Hong Kong action movie DVDs that Lao had packed in his duffel bag, and drank the whisky he had purchased in the duty-free shop before he had boarded the plane in Hong Kong. At a certain point in the movie, the main character was sent to New York to assassinate the son of a rival mob boss in retaliation for a deal gone bad.

Lao refilled his glass, laughing when one of the enemy goons had his head blown off by the hero, his skull exploding like a smashed melon while his body remained upright for five exaggerated seconds. “I don’t get it,” Lao mumbled with a deep sigh, his words sloppy with drink. “ _I’m_ the one who gets sent away for protecting your skinny little teenage ass, and that idiot boy... _Okumura Eiji_...” Lao said, mimicking Yut-Lung’s contemptuous way of saying Eiji’s name, “…he comes back here to fucking _live_. He comes back to live in _my_ city, _my_ home, while I get sent into exile. How fucking _unfair_ is that?”

“Eiji’s dead, Lao.” Sing was drunk enough to feel no pain, but not drunk enough yet to throttle Lao. Close, but not quite there. “We’re in his house. Show some respect.”

“And that’s another thing,” Lao continued blabbering, clearly more drunk than Sing and missing all the stop signs, “that kid came back for nothing. He goes home to Japan, and then he comes all the way back, and for what? That fucker didn’t even wait for him. He didn’t do a goddamn thing, didn’t lift a finger to save himself. What kind of moron does that?”

On the screen, a building was going up in flames, but all Sing could do was mutter with his heart in his throat, “Shut up, Lao. You have no right to say anything about—”

“Of course I have the right!” Lao shouted, spittle running down the side of his mouth. He swiped at it angrily with the back of his hand. “I’m the one who had the guts to do the right thing. I’m the one who finally got to the great Ash Lynx!” Lao slumped back against the sofa, laughing and shaking his head in disbelief. “I didn’t hit a fucking organ! Can you believe that? That asshole, Yut-Lung…he told me I could never kill Ash, and he was right. I had him right there, and I couldn’t even kill him. The jerk-off…all he cared about was that stupid letter. You should have seen him…scrounging around on the ground like he was some homeless fuck picking up cigarette butts…shit…I couldn’t believe it. It was like I just gave him a scratch. He only cared about that letter. He stood there reading it like nothing had happened. Then he went back inside the library. Un-fucking-believable. Some guy asked if he should call an ambulance and that fool just waved him off. Too fucking funny. And I’m the one that paid the price.” 

Sing stood up. If he stayed sitting there next to Lao, he would strangle him. He couldn’t kill his own stepbrother, so Sing stood up and walked silently to the guest room, calling over his shoulder, “Turn off the TV when you’re done.”

It wasn’t until Sing had closed the door to the bedroom that Eiji turned to Ash, his eyes wide and shining with tears, “Sing told me you died right away. Is it true, what Lao just said? Is it true you went back into the library?”

They had been making out in the living room when Sing and Lao had unexpectedly shown up at the apartment. Sing normally stayed out quite late on a Saturday and, since returning from Japan, they had gotten into the habit of spending time in Eiji’s old place when Sing was out. It was Eiji’s idea to stick around and listen in on the conversation. He wanted to face his own demon in Lao, find out for himself if he still harbored the same hatred he had felt for the man who had killed Ash. And now…he didn’t know what to think, and Ash didn’t know what to say. What could he say? What could he say that wouldn’t kill Eiji all over again?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know everyone hates Lao for what he did to Ash, and will probably hate me too for even mentioning him in this fic, but I want to use him as the catalyst that will enable both Ash and Eiji to face certain very painful truths and move them forward. Please bear with me.


	18. Chapter 18

Lao fell into a drunken stupor on the living room couch, the movie credits scrolling down the television screen as he began snoring loudly, lower jaw slackened by alcohol. Meanwhile, World War III had erupted behind him in the kitchen. It was Japan vs America and the tiny island nation was beating the pants off of the US of A.

“Will you just _listen_ to me?” Ash shouted for the twentieth time, both arms held defensively in front of his chest, and for the twentieth time, Eiji came at him with fists of fury. Sure, they’d had their share of arguments before, in life _and_ in death. _Every_ couple had arguments, but this one made his knife fight with Arthur seem like a leisurely stroll through the park. Ash was pretty sure Eiji would have bashed him over the head with a frying pan if he could have. Luckily for him, the dead weren’t able to manipulate objects in the world of the living, so his blond head remained unsmashed.

“Baka!” Eiji screamed, his face red and wet with tears. “Baka! Baka! Baka!”

Ash knew what “baka” meant, and he also knew when Eiji switched over to, uh, stronger Japanese curse words that weren’t as nice as being called “idiot.” He knew he deserved it. Shorter had been urging him to have the dreaded “talk” with Eiji, but Ash had kept putting it off, just like he had kept putting off going all the way with him, and now he was backed into a corner and getting his ass kicked by a boy he had never seen before. His sweet unassuming Eiji had turned into a raging lunatic.

“You left me behind!” Punch, punch. “On purpose!” Punch, punch. “How could you do that to me?” Punch, punch. “I told you: you can change your future, you can change your fate! And _that_ is what you choose?” Punch, punch. “If you planned on dying, why didn’t you just let me stay and die with you? Why wouldn’t you wait for me?” Eiji sat down on the floor finally, exhaustion taking over. He was hoarse from yelling so much. “You made me suffer all those years…I would have been so happy to die with you.” He sobbed into the hollow of his arms, his elbows resting on his pulled up knees, and watched his tears hit the tile of the floor. Plop, plop. 

“And I already told you,” he heard Ash say, frustration and anger thickening his own voice, “I did it for _you_ , to keep you safe. Why can’t you understand that? I did it for you!” 

“You did it for me,” Eiji repeated woodenly, face to the floor still. Well, there it was. It wasn’t just that stupid letter. It was him all along. _He_ was the one responsible for Ash’s death. Not Lao, who was sawing wood in the living room. Not Golzine or Foxx or Yut-Lung or Arthur or any number of scum who had hung over Ash’s head like some pitiless Sword of Damocles. He, Okumura Eiji, foolish boy from Japan, had driven Ash Lynx to suicide. “You died. It’s my fault. I did it.”

Ash threw his hands up in the air and groaned, tearing at his own hair. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, that’s _not_ what I mean!” Ash turned and kicked the cabinet below the sink as hard as he could. Of course, he didn’t make a dent. His words weren’t making a dent into Eiji’s thick skull, either. “That’s not what I mean and you know it!” With a grunt, he slammed his fist into the refrigerator a couple times for good measure and only managed to split his knuckles. “Fuck!” Goddamn it to hell, if only he had taken Blanca up on his offer, he would have been on a plane to the Caribbean instead of moping in the library. There would have been no letter delivered, no Lao waiting for him on the sidewalk, but there would have been the opportunity for a future in which he could show up on Eiji’s doorstep in Izumo on day. “Surprise!” he could have said and swept Eiji up into his arms. But he was too proud to accept help from an old mentor, too proud to show any weakness. He was determined to be the hero forever doomed to a lonely violent life of gangbanging, as if that was worth anything. What sheer stupidity!

“You…” Eiji wiped his face on his sleeve, his voice quiet and raw. “You’re not the only one who welcomed death.”

“Stop it, Eiji.” He couldn’t listen to this, though the pathetic irony wasn’t lost on Ash. He had spent his adult life running from Dino’s grasp, only to put his beloved Eiji into a gilded cage of a luxury condo, and then into a different kind of prison when he chose to die. “You had a chance for a good life. You could have been safe and happy without me putting you in danger.” What had seemed before like a truth etched in stone sounded so hollow now. Ash could no longer convince himself of its veracity even as he voiced the sentiment.

“Happy?” asked Eiji, his eyes wide with bewilderment. “Without you?” It occurred to him suddenly that he had been _such_ a liar. All the things he had said to Sing to assure him that all was well, that the earth was still spinning on its axis after Ash’s death and that Eiji wasn’t dying dying dying inside, every second of every fucking day, dying with a smile on his lips and a spring in his step, just waiting for the moment when he could go to sleep and never wake up. He had pretended so well, so well that he had convinced himself he could go through life as the walking dead until his heart gave out and he wouldn’t have to see the look of hope in Sing’s eyes, a look that said, “I won’t leave you like he did.” He had never considered even once the possibility of opening his heart to another, even if the man who owned his heart had left him behind.

“Eiji.” This time it was Ash who knelt down and reached his arms out to embrace him. “Let’s not fight anymore.”

“Go home,” Eiji said instead. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned his face away. “Maybe you were right.” 

“What are you talking about?” Ash swallowed his surprise, a gulp that sounded sickeningly loud in his ears.

“Different worlds, right? Isn’t that what you always told me?” It was cowardly, but Eiji didn’t have the strength to look into Ash’s eyes. He didn’t need to see his face to know what his expression would be. It was enough to hear the sharp intake of breath, a hiss almost, and then the sound of Ash’s sneakered footsteps hurrying out the door. Eiji waited as long as he could before throwing his head back and screaming at the top of his lungs. No words, he was sick of words and all the words spoken that night had only been ruinous to them both; he uttered just sounds, the kind of garbled, unintelligible sounds a wounded animal would make. When he grew too tired to do even that, he trudged to Sing’s room, kicked off his shoes, and lay beside him in bed. Sleep found him quickly, the warmth of Sing’s big body a merciful balm to his sorrow. So Eiji slept, clinging to his friend, and dreamt of a field of golden wheat bathed in sunlight. Just ahead of him in the near distance was Ash in a white T-shirt and jeans, the breeze blowing his hair about his face. In the dream, Eiji reached out, calling, “Ash, wait. Wait for me.” But Ash didn’t turn around. He kept walking ahead, towards the horizon, further and further, until Eiji could no longer see him.

 


	19. Chapter 19

While Eiji slept in his old apartment beside Sing, Ash ranted. He screamed all the way to Nadia’s apartment over the restaurant, where Shorter usually spent his nights, and then he recounted every single infuriating exchange word-for-word to his friend.

“Shorter! _Shorter!!! Are you listening?!_ ”

“Bro, you need to chillax.” Shorter squinted at his iPad, ignoring the young man pacing back and forth on the edges of his peripheral vision. “Knit one, purl two,” he mumbled under his breath. He was doing his best to follow along with a YouTube demo video and Ash screaming at him was a distraction.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I’m _trying_ to learn how to knit,” Shorter replied, “and I’d appreciate it if _someone_ would stop being a royal pain in the ass.”

Ash gaped at his friend, his face red from yelling and the two mile walk in a snowstorm from Eiji’s brownstone in Greenwich Village to Nadia’s restaurant on Mott Street. The ball of yarn in Shorter’s lap and the knitting needles in his hands were a sight Ash couldn’t even imagine in his most crazed nightmare. “For shit’s sake, why are you _knitting_?”

“You know how it’s colder than a witch’s tit in the winter here?” Shorter enthused. “Well, I’m knitting a cock sock for myself.” 

“We’re fucking _dead_ , dude,” Ash replied, incredulous. “We don’t _feel_ the cold.”

“Well, maybe _you_ don’t, but I do.” To prove his point, Shorter held out his hand and said, “Here, feel my fingers.”

Ash reached out and grabbed Shorter’s hand, not because he was taking Shorter’s claim seriously, but to humor his best friend so they could move on to the real pressing issue: how to get him out of the hole he had dug himself into with Eiji. “Jesus Christ! They’re like icicles!” If Shorter’s fingers were that cold, then it stood to reason that his _other_ extremities would be equally frozen.

“Told ya.” Shorter grinned with smug satisfaction. “Now, tell me again what happened?” 

Ash slumped in the chair beside Shorter and groaned. “He threw me out. He wouldn’t even let me…stay overnight.”

“Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. What d’ya expect?” Shorter paused the video and put down his knitting. “I told you, didn’t I? The sooner you tell him the truth, the less the damage. But would you listen to me? Nooooo, of course not. The great Ash Lynx knows soooo much better.”

Ash was silent and staring down at his hands, which were clenched into fists.

“Cat got your tongue?” Shorter prodded. 

“I…I think I said the wrong thing,” Ash finally conceded.

“So tell him the _right_ thing. How hard is that?”

What was right? What was wrong? These questions had dogged Ash his whole life and he still didn’t know what the answer was. “I don’t know how to fix this,” Ash told Shorter. “I don’t know how to fix myself.”

Shorter sighed like the long-suffering friend he had always been.  In so many ways, Ash and Eiji were like oil and water, two elements that _should_ repel each other because they were so different at heart, so _opposite_ , and yet there were no two people who were better suited to walk through eternity hand-in-hand. They were their own worst enemies, not because they didn’t love each other, but because they _did_. Shorter had known them both. He had known Ash longer and understood him thoroughly, in life and in death, and as brief as his experience had been with Eiji in life, well…Eiji was so pure and unguarded, he was so easy to read. Like an open book, Eiji had told his story with ease and honesty and it hadn’t taken Shorter long at all to realize that the naïve boy from Japan was just what Ash needed. If Ash hadn’t needed a boy like Eiji, then Shorter would have taken the boy under his own wing. He would have befriended him no matter what, _that_ was the kind of boy Eiji was.

“Why is this so fucking complicated for you?” asked Shorter. “Tell him you’re sorry. Make it right. You love him. He loves you. What else is there?”

Ash wriggled his toes inside his soggy Converse sneakers. “I’m…maybe I’m not good enough for him.”

“Oh. My. God. Why are they not making a reality show out of this?” Shorter scrubbed his face, frustration making him itch all over. “Fine. I’ll go talk to Eiji tomorrow. I’ll tell him whatever it is that you can’t say to his face but, fuck it all to hell, Ash, you better fix your shit!”

With a sheepish nod, Ash glanced over at the ‘cock sock’ Shorter was knitting and his eyes widened. “You plan on wearing that when you’ve got a hard-on or something?” asked Ash.

“Some of us are well-endowed,” Shorted replied. “When I’m done with this one, I’ll knit you one in your own size: extra small.”

Ten minutes later, they were both on the floor and black and blue from the fist fight that had immediately followed that comment, but at least Ash was laughing, his gloomy mood lifted after the adrenalin rush of a brutal pummeling.

“Now,” panted Shorter, brushing off his Noah Syndergaard baseball jersey as he straightened onto wobbly legs, “doesn’t that feel better?”

Ash picked up a chair that had been knocked over and pushed it under the table. There was a moment of hesitation, and then he hugged Shorter from behind, squeezing him hard.

“Hey…you better not be thinking of getting busy with me, coz you know I don’t swing that way.” Shorter patted Ash’s bruised knuckles and turned to face him, still held in the circle of his arms, and kissed his cheeks. “Even for a dumbass like you.”

“Don’t worry. I don’t go for muscle-bound freaks.” Ash planted a sloppy kiss on Shorter’s lips just to annoy him, and then mumbled into his shoulder, “Can I crash here tonight?” It was late and he was tired and getting to his condo in the middle of a winter storm would be a total bitch.

Shorter was tempted to remind Ash of that old saying, something about not going to bed angry after a fight, but then he figured that tomorrow would be as good as any time to broker a truce between Ash and Eiji. “Yeah, man, just make sure you stay on your side of the bed.” 

The next day, Ash awoke to bright sunshine and Shorter’s morning wood wedged between his butt cheeks. At some point during the night, Shorter had snuggled up against him for warmth—the room that Shorter slept in upstairs in his sister’s apartment above the restaurant was used as a storeroom by Nadia and was poorly insulated—and this is how Ash found himself spooning with someone who supposedly didn’t swing that way. He tried nudging him away with an elbow, but that only made Shorter snuggle closer and hold on like a drowning man to a large piece of driftwood.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Ash groaned. Shorter felt like a hot sweaty blanket draped all over him like that. He laid still and tried to ignore the fact that his best friend’s hard cock was touching him down there, tried not to scratch the back of his neck where Shorter’s warm puffs of breath were tickling his skin. _I should be in bed with Eiji_ , thought Ash. _I should be waking up with my morning wood between his legs_. And then he wanted to kick himself. _When did I become such a dickless loser? Where are my goddamn balls?_ He had always seen himself as the tough guy, the guy who held his feelings in check. Wait, no, he was the guy who had no feelings at all, right? He had locked those feelings away through sheer strength of will in order to survive and he was a survivor if nothing else. He had told Eiji that night he and the gang were shooting their way out of Dino’s compound, the night Shorter had died, “I will protect you.”

 _I will protect you_.

Ash grimaced at the memory. _I did a shit job of it_. In the end, he couldn’t keep Eiji safe; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make good on his claim. Was that hubris, to claim such a thing? _I will protect you_. Did some god strike at the very core of him to punish him for such vaunting pride? Eiji had written in his letter, a letter Ash knew by heart: “I know you are much smarter than me, and bigger and stronger…but even so…I always wanted to protect you. Funny, isn’t it?” That was just like Eiji, to say the truth with modesty, with humility, and Ash had believed it, especially the part about him being smarter, bigger, and stronger, but now…it felt as if the world were upside down. He felt stupid, small, weak…had he been that way all along? Had all his actions, in life and in death, been a mask for the real Ash Lynx, the one who was the exact opposite of the boy Eiji thought he loved? If he had truly been the boy in the letter, the one who was smarter, bigger, and stronger than Eiji, then would he have chosen death that day? Would he?

When he thought back to that day, he always saw it as a moment of peaceful resolution. For once, he would be in control of his own fate, his own destiny. It wasn’t Dino or even Blanca telling him what to do. It was just him, Ash Lynx, choosing to let it end on his own terms. He would die a tragic hero, his beloved Eiji safe in Japan and forever free of the violence and bloodshed that was Ash’s entire world and which stained everything and everyone he touched, including Eiji. “You’re safe from me now, Eiji. You’re free.” And so he had let Eiji fly away, free as a bird. The last memory he had as his body slowly shut down from blood loss was of Eiji silhouetted against the dawn sky. He was flying, flying over that wall, a wall that was an insurmountable obstacle for Ash but not for a boy like Eiji, a boy who could fly. It was only after Ash had died that he realized that Eiji hadn’t stayed in Japan at all. He had come right back and Ash’s absence from his world had clipped Eiji’s wings forever. He could no longer fly, he was no longer free.

Over seven years later, in thinking about that day in the library—the reason for his fight with Eiji the night before—Ash was finally able to admit to himself without the taint of pride, “I wish I hadn’t done that.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line, "Ash, you better fix your shit!" is directly inspired by a comment by MylaCoelho. Thanks Myla!


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it’s been a little while since I updated here, but I’ve been busy with other fics. Anyway, I’m back!

Shorter was out of breath by the time he trudged from the Christopher Street subway station to Eiji’s old brownstone, his face frozen numb and yet feeling like it was _on fire_ from the windburn. Three feet of snow had fallen overnight and the residents were still digging out. City plows had passed through the narrow side streets of Greenwich Village and buried the parked cars, and now people were out with their shovels throwing the snow willy-nilly back onto the street. Shorter had to duck and dodge more than a few times to avoid getting a face full of dirty slush. Not that the stuff would actually hit him, but he couldn’t switch off his natural reflexes.

“I’m like the Chinese Admiral Perry dicking around the South Pole…” Shorter muttered behind his scarf, “or was it the North Pole?”

God, he hated winter! The weather out in LA had been so freaking gorgeous that time he and Ash and Eiji had driven out there with Max and Ibe, on the hunt for the mysterious Banana Fish before _everything_ went completely sideways. So much crazy shit had gone down in LA, though, that Shorter couldn’t bring himself to settle there. He still had cousins out on the West Coast, but that is where that snake Yut-Lung of the powerful Lee clan had reared his slithery head and forced Shorter to betray his best friend in the whole world. No, he couldn’t go back there. He was resigned to stay in New York and endure its cock-shriveling cold winters. Besides, his sister Nadia was here and he wasn’t about to leave her, and Ash was here too...with Eiji…sort of…

“Stupid lover’s quarrel…give me a break. Those two just need to fuck and have some babies.” The ridiculous idea of those two producing an imaginary love child was better than the much realer prospect that Nadia and Charlie would be parents one day. Shorter didn’t mind being an uncle, but he sure as shit was terrified of having a ginger-haired niece or nephew. If only he hadn’t had that nightmare of his sister’s doll coming to life and castrating him, he wouldn’t have this irrational fear of red hair.

Shorter was still grumbling to himself when he caught a glimpse of Sing outside the brownstone. He was clearing the steps leading down to the sidewalk, tossing snow by the shovelful like it was the consistency of cotton candy rather than wet cement, dressed in just an old, too small Black Flag T-shirt, sweatpants, and boots. A wave of sweet nostalgia washed over Shorter. He had given Sing that T-shirt right off his back years ago when Sing was just an eager acolyte, thirteen years old and full of awe and adulation for his gang boss.

“Here, you like this shirt? You can have it kid.” Shorter had taken it off and slipped it onto the slender boy; the shirt had come down to Sing's mid-thigh. “You in there somewhere?” Shorter had teased, laughing at how big the shirt looked on the young teen.

That same shirt looked tiny now on Sing, the cotton fabric thin from numerous washings and stretched tight around the young man’s muscular chest and biceps. The cold forgotten, Shorter stood and watched Sing work for a few moments—his thick arms flexing as he shoveled past the steps and began clearing the sidewalk—and a grin curled Shorter’s lips, his gut warming with familial pride. A Chinese gang boss was always the big brother looking after his little brothers, or the father looking after his sons, and clans traced their blood ties back to ancestors who lived centuries ago. Feuds and loyalties lasted forever. Sing, though, had managed to do the impossible. Not only had he offered his loyalty to a rival gang boss—Ash, whom Lao had refused to forgive out of his own loyalty to Shorter— he had also ended an internal feud with the Lees that could have engulfed all of Chinatown.

“Damn it, Sing, you’ve really done me proud.” 

He only saw Sing sporadically; his former mentee was busy with his studies at university and running interference for Yut-Lung. Every time Shorter thought about Yut-Lung and the fact that Sing was now his lieutenant, he had to swallow down a fair amount of anger, but this was between him and Yut-Lung and had nothing to do with Sing. Things had changed so much. Chinatown was being managed better than it had ever been in the past; pettiness and power struggles had died down. If it weren’t for Sing’s offer to help Yut-Lung take back control of Chinatown, the place would still be a cauldron of unrest and violent killings. They would still be fighting a bloody, senseless war of attrition. If Shorter had lived, things would probably have been very different, and maybe not for the better. He might not have been as savvy as Sing and Chinatown might still be in a shambles, Asian gangs fighting other Asian gangs, the Lee clan with Yut-Lung as its dragon head breathing hellfire on friend and foe alike.

And now Shorter had to negotiate a peace treaty for a different war altogether…

He made his way into the brownstone and found Eiji sitting in the living room staring at a still comatose Lao. Unlike Sing, who had risen high and bettered himself in every way, Shorter’s former lieutenant and best friend in the gang had fallen far since his death. It was as if Shorter’s early demise had taken Lao with him. Were their fates connected somehow? He hoped not. A man should take responsibility for his own actions, although Shorter was not one to be harsh in judgment. After all, he had made a promise that he didn’t exactly fulfill: to kill Eiji before Dino could violate him as he had done repeatedly to Ash…but it had played out all wrong. He wasn’t even in his right mind at the time, shot full of Banana Fish and unable to think, much less control himself. It was Ash who told him what had happened that night in Dino’s torture chamber, and Shorter had been appalled.

“I tried to stab Eiji? Jesus Christ!”

That Ash had shot him dead was something for which Shorter would always be grateful. “Thanks, man,” Shorter had told Ash afterwards, when they were _both_ dead. “I’d never be able to forgive myself if I had…shit…you know I wanted to protect Eiji…” 

“I know,” Ash had replied. 

“I owe you, bro.” 

And Ash had cried, his guilt over Shorter’s death as fresh as the moment it had happened.

“Let it go, man,” Shorter had told him, “you did the right thing.” He had held Ash in his arms and let him sob into his shoulder. And then Ash had wiped his face on his sleeve and sucked in a shuddering breath.

“I never told you this,” Ash had said, his eyes downcast, “but I saw your brain...in Mannerheim’s lab.”

“Th’ fuck? My…my fucking _brain_?” 

Ash had nodded. “Yeah. It was in a jar of formaldehyde.”

“Ho-ly shiiit. Was it ripped, like my hot bod?”

And Ash had looked at him with a smirk on his lips. “Puh-lease. It was as smooth as a baby’s bottom.”

Okay, so maybe he wasn’t the brightest bulb, but he sure as heck was _likeable_ , one might even say _charming_ and _diplomatic_ in an easy-going gangbanger way. His own boys had loved and respected him when he was alive and Shorter wasn’t about to dial down his mojo now that he was dead. He sat down next to the snoring Lao so that Eiji had to look at him instead of the man who had stabbed Ash in an unnecessary act of misguided heroism.

Shorter cut right to the chase. “Eiji, I know you’re mad, and you have every right to be, but you gotta believe me: Ash is really sorry. I mean, fuck, he cried in his sleep last night. He kept saying your name. It was _pathetic_. Seriously, bro, if I have to take another night of that, I’m gonna end up _bald_.” Shorter ran his fingers lovingly through his dyed mohawk.

Eiji’s face fell, though, Shorter’s words going straight to his heart. He had seen it with his own eyes so many times: Ash crying in his sleep, calling for the mother who had abandoned him. The memory was seared into his brain and now the thought that he had put Ash right back in that miserable place was unbearable. All his anger left him. “I…” Eiji rubbed at his face. If he hadn’t had Sing to anchor him to the bed last night, Eiji might have floated all the way to outer space. He was simply _lost_ and _empty_ without Ash. He didn’t want that, a night spent without him; he had spent too many nights like that already. He had sent Ash away because he was so shocked and furious and he was afraid of the things he might say if Ash had stayed. So…it was worth the night of deprivation, Eiji supposed, if it meant they didn’t exchange any more hurtful words. But it was already more suffering than he wanted to endure.

“Is he alright?” Eiji asked. “I mean, is he still with you?” 

Shorter shook his head. “Nah. He went back to the condo this morning. He said he was going to take a shower and go back to bed. Can you believe, he said I kept him up all night with my snoring? Sheesh. _He_ was the one who kept _me_ up with all his crying.” Eiji’s glum expression made Shorter steer the conversation in a more positive direction. “So, you ready to kiss and make up with him? That’s the fun part of fighting, isn’t it?”

Eiji wasn’t quite ready to switch gears so abruptly. “You knew, didn’t you? About the letter…the library…” 

“Yeah, he told me,” admitted Shorter with a nervous scratch on his chin.

“Do you think he did the right thing?”

Shorter sighed loudly and slouched back against the sofa. It was getting awfully hot in the room and then Shorter realized he was still wearing his winter parka. He unzipped it and shrugged it off, laying it over Lao’s slumbering form next to him.  He really didn’t want to weigh in with his own opinions and make things worse in the process, but Eiji was staring at him with those big brown innocent eyes of his. “Look, Eiji, does it really matter what _I_ think?”

“Yes,” nodded Eiji, “it matters to me. You’ve known Ash a lot longer than I have—”

“Well, that’s true.”

“—and I need to know if…if I’m wrong about everything.”

“Aw, c’mon bro, there’s no such thing as right or wrong about shit like this, is there? I mean…okay, I didn’t agree with what he did, and if I had been there, I would have kicked his ass all the way to the ER. There. I said it. _Obviously_ , he can be a total bonehead sometimes. But did you ever think that maybe he just made the wrong choice, simple as that? He thought he was doing the right thing, and it turned out to be wrong. He made a mistake, Eiji. He’s only human. Were you expecting him to be perfect?”

Oh, how Ash’s boys would hang on his every command! He was their leader, so certain of his actions and decisions, there was never any hesitation or doubt. His gang, his allies, even his enemies, they all looked to him as if he were an infallible god. But what Eiji had seen was a teenaged boy who stood so alone, a boy who cried in his lap, who bore the burden of everyone else’s desires and shortcomings on his shoulders, who took offense when he was teased about his fear of pumpkins, who was overly sensitive to being touched and bandaged. Ash had allowed him, only him, to pull back the curtain and see the real Ash Lynx. _That_ was the boy that Eiji had pledged to stand by—not the supreme gang boss, but the vulnerable, hurt soul—because _that_ was the boy who needed him. And yet that same vulnerable, hurt soul, the _real_ Ash Lynx, had chosen to die on that mountain without him, believing that Eiji’s love would sustain him in the afterlife. But who or what, then, would sustain Eiji in life? It was the memory of Ash, and Eiji’s own belief that, as always, all choice had been removed from Ash’s grasp. So he had thought.

“Just a mistake?” Eiji murmured. “He told me he did it for me. He thought he could protect me from himself, the violence and all. I never cared about that. I wasn’t afraid to die with him, as long as we were together.”

“So,” Shorter said. He put a big hand on Eiji’s shoulder and squeezed it firmly. “What are you going to do about it now? If he made a mistake, then maybe it’s time for you to help him fix it.”

 


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to PurplePirate83 for sending me Yoshida's "Fly Boy in the Sky," which is referenced in this chapter's first paragraph.

Pride in nation was one thing; pride in oneself was another. Eiji had grown up in a country where the collective ethos came above all else, _especially_ above individual desire, but Eiji had not been a typical boy. Yes, he was polite and conscientious of the feelings of others, but he had been rather rude and wary the day that Ibe-san had appeared at his high school asking to interview him. When he thought back to his teenaged self, Eiji wanted to cringe. Sheesh. He had been so socially awkward and clueless about what he would eventually become. At the time, he had assumed he would be a professional pole vaulter, maybe even represent Japan in the Olympics one day. A photographer wishing to document his training routine only confirmed that this _could_ be his future. Of course, it hadn’t worked out that way. He had suffered a severe ankle injury, and then he had fallen into a deep depression, and it was Ibe-san who gave him an opportunity to see a different world.

A different world. A world in which a boy named Ash Lynx existed. He was no less socially awkward during his first meeting with Ash. In fact, Ibe-san had to tell him, “Don’t say such things!” when Eiji had asked Ash, pointblank, if he had ever killed anyone. But Ash hadn’t flinched, hadn’t even batted an eyelash before replying, “Yeah.” And so it began, an adventure in a different world that had made Eiji open his eyes to things he could never imagine before, made him see violence and squalor and desperation, made him feel the most wretched heartache and loss. And love, such love, a love that could break and heal and overwhelm one’s soul and say without equivocation, “You are the one.”

If there were such a thing as fate, then all the steps he and Ash had taken could only lead to one thing. If Ash were that leopard that had died on that mountainside, then Eiji would be the snow that covered his body like a blanket. All along, Eiji had told Ash, “You’re not a leopard,” but perhaps he was, perhaps at heart Ash had always been a proud, beautiful, feral beast, and perhaps he was meant to die on that mountainside, alone and thinking whatever thoughts a wild animal thinks before darkness falls. Wasn’t that his right? Don’t all animals wish to die alone? And wasn’t it time for Eiji to accept that? Ash would die alone, and Eiji would be the snow, his love would be the snow preserving Ash for all eternity.

***

The condo was quiet when Eiji let himself in. He shrugged out of his jacket and toed his boots off in the foyer, then went into the kitchen and sat at the table. If they were still alive, he’d know what to do: he’d make a shrimp and avocado salad to placate an angry Ash. It was one of Ash’s favorite dishes and it always did the trick, but they were both dead and didn’t really need to eat, so that option was out the window. Shorter had said that Ash had gone back to the condo that morning to shower and sleep and Eiji didn’t hear anyone in the bathroom, so he could only assume that Ash was in the bedroom. He sighed and rubbed his face. At times like this, he wished for the old days, as chaotic as they were, when the gang was all together and the moments he spent with Ash weren’t complicated, not in the ways they were complicated _now_. It was all so stupid!

“You love him and he loves you. Quit overthinking it,” is what Shorter had told him. “I don’t even have a brain but you don’t see me being miserable.”

Eiji laughed. That Shorter…spouting such words of wisdom. Ash had an IQ of 200 or whatever and Eiji himself had been academically sharp, but leave it to Shorter who had been a truant his entire high school career to be the sage when it came to interpersonal relationships. “You’re right, Shorter,” Eiji muttered to himself as he headed to the bedroom. “Two smarty pants are just a recipe for disaster.” When he went to knock on the door, he saw that it was slightly ajar, so Eiji took a moment to gather his wits before calling out softly as he pushed the door open further, “Ash?”

The body facing towards the window on the bed didn’t stir, but the response was clearly audible. “Hey, Eiji.”

Eiji trudged slowly into the room and around the bed and got down on his knees in front of Ash, whose eyes were open and staring at Eiji’s chest before locking onto his gaze. And in that moment, every single thing he had experienced with Ash flashed through his mind, every fear and joy and regret, and it finally occurred to Eiji that none of that mattered. The past was the past. He had clung to those precious memories and they had made him what he was up until now, but it was time to start anew. He had to let it go—all the despair and bitterness over Ash’s death—he had to let it all go so they could now be something else, something _better_. It had been easy to die, but so much harder to live without his other half, so what was he waiting for? Hadn’t he mourned enough? It was time to take Ash by the hand and pull them both forward.

“What are you doing on the floor?” Ash grumbled. “Get up.”

“No, listen to me, Ash.” Eiji scooted closer on his knees, their faces inches apart, and rested his hand on Ash’s cheek. “I’m sorry. I was wrong. Will you forgive me?”

“Stop that. I’m the one who—”

“No, Ash. I’m not angry anymore. I understand what you did. You had to do it. It’s not what I wanted, but…I accept it.”

“Christ.” Ash reached out and put his hand over Eiji’s. “I made a huge fucking mistake.”

“So did I.” Eiji leaned in and pressed his cheek against Ash’s as they finally embraced. “I thought I could save you, or maybe climb that mountain with you.”

“You did. You did.” He pulled Eiji to his chest and the warmth of his body next to his, the sweet scent of him filling his nostrils, was enough to make Ash let go of his pride and show weakness. “You smell like snow,” he said before uttering aloud the very words he could barely admit to himself. “Sometimes I wish…I wish we had never met.” And then he broke down crying because it was the truth, wasn’t it? If they had never met, then they would have never suffered like this. God, he had so many regrets. All the people he had killed; he would never be washed clean of it. And was his childhood trauma a good enough excuse for what he had become later on? He had been raped, then abused time and again, and spent his teens murdering people, as if evil could balance more evil on some perverted scale of justice. He had spilled his guts out to Eiji that one night, told Eiji the truth about himself, that he was scum and irredeemable, and Eiji hadn’t run away in revulsion, he had held him, he had _stayed_. And here he was once more—weeping in Eiji’s arms like a fool—and he didn’t feel any less foolish right now. The first time around, Eiji had told him that he would stand by him. Even if the whole world turned against him, he would be by his side, and Eiji had kept his promise, then and now.

“You think if we had never met, then we wouldn’t have suffered?” asked Eiji. He kissed Ash’s face, over and over, tasting the salt of his tears mixed with his own. “No. We would have suffered _more_. We would have never known love. What we have is worth all the suffering in the world, and all the joy. Don’t say ‘no’ to me, to yourself, to _us_. Say ‘yes.’ Say ‘yes’ a thousand times, a million times. It will never be too many times. As long as I have you by my side, I am happy.” He slotted his mouth to Ash’s and kissed him deeply, let the slick slide of their tongues do the talking for long minutes as they slowly undressed each other. When they were both naked, Eiji crawled under the sheets with Ash and their limbs tangled in a messy embrace as they writhed against each other, kissing, biting, sucking. “I want you, Ash, more than anything in the world. I want to be with you.”

Plenty of people had made filthy use of Ash, so many in fact that he was nothing more than a human toilet in his own mind. Could Eiji really want him, knowing how unclean he was, when Eiji himself was so pure? Before he could think twice, he blurted out, “I’m so fucking dirty.”

That made Eiji pause; then he caressed Ash’s face, smiling. “The light and the darkness, I love them both.”

Eiji had said the same thing during that interview with the journalist at the gallery, and hearing him say those same words again...Ash thought of that photo of him sitting on the window sill that had been hung in the exhibition, of all the other pictures of him that Eiji had saved and kept secret and cried over. Eiji loved him, all of him, the good and the bad, it could only mean _that_. He had to believe it, that someone like Eiji could truly love a broken boy like him.

“Ash…let this be your first time,” Eiji said, like it was a prayer.

“It is,” Ash replied, his breath hot against Eiji’s cheek. “I’ve never done this with someone I love.”

“You’ll let me in, then?” asked Eiji, “you’ll let us start all over again? You’ll let me love you?”

And for the first time, Ash said ‘yes.’ He pulled Eiji on top of him and offered his body, opened himself up willingly. And for the first time, it didn’t hurt. It had never felt like this before, the sensation of another soul moving inside him, slow and steady, making him whole, making him moan with pleasure. Higher and higher they soared. Ash wrapped his legs around Eiji’s hips, clung to his shoulders as they rocked together, and when their orgasms gripped them in the sweetest embrace, Ash finally knew what it was to fly. Together they flew as one, and in the sky the moon passed in front of the sun, the light and the darkness crossing paths, two separate worlds joined at last.

________

Here's some more incredible fanart of [Ash x Eiji](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4-KmekzgTY) set to one of my favorite songs by Maroon 5. Thank you to TheLadyluna2 for posting this beautiful AMV to YouTube.

 


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I’m finally back. Thank you for your patience. 
> 
> So many people emailed me to say they wanted an Ash x Eiji x Shorter ship, so…think of this chapter as the beginning of Part Two of this fic, a reboot more or less where all the misery of Part One is wiped clean and our boys are living a more carefree life, sort of…I mean, this is still a “Banana Fish” fic, but it’ll be AU up the wazoo.

 

 _Who’s to say what really happened that day when Ash and Eiji joined their souls at last? What we can say for certain is that a solar eclipse occurred in the heavens when their souls came together. There was darkness and there was light; two separate worlds became one. Perhaps the tender-hearted among us can also say that love conquers all—even the deepest sadness, even death—through the unbreakable thread of memory and longing that binds two souls forever. And so the eternal wheel of life turns and the cycle begins anew_ …

 

It was early September 1985 and Washington Square Park was thronged with people soaking up the last hot rays of sunshine at the tail end of summer. In another month, the leaves would turn and the nights would grow cold, and then there would be blistering wind and snow and ice, but today the city was abuzz with both residents and tourists enjoying the fine weather outdoors: there were couples pushing babies in strollers, teens whizzing around on skateboards, dogs chasing each other off-leash, and a few dealers selling black beauties and Quaaludes under the shade of a sugar maple. The ubiquitous savory-sweet aroma of roasted nuts wafted through the air, punctuated by the occasional acrid whiff of marijuana. It was New York City at its finest. 

A song by Simple Minds—“Don’t You Forget About Me”—blasted from a boombox as nineteen-year-old Eiji Okumura walked through the park and along Fourth Street towards Broadway. In his backpack was a Sony Walkman which he had brought with him from Japan; he planned on wowing his classmates with it when the school term began tomorrow. Eiji was starting his sophomore year as a fine arts major specializing in photography at Parsons School of Design. Being a photographer wasn’t his first choice. All through middle school and high school in Japan, he had trained to be a pole vaulter. He had shown tremendous talent until a severe ankle injury did a number on his confidence. No matter how hard he tried to get back into competition, he simply couldn’t overcome his self-doubt. He fell into a deep depression until a former acquaintance, a photographer named Shunichi Ibe who had followed Eiji’s early career and taken portraits of him flying through the air like a bird, invited him to be his assistant during a trip to New York City. That trip changed Eiji’s outlook. It opened his eyes and gave him hope. He decided then to follow in Ibe-san’s footsteps and become a photographer himself. He would recapture the joy he had lost in another way, in another world.

He had found a cheap room to rent thanks to a fellow art major, a Chinese dude named Shorter Wong whose older sister Nadia ran a small restaurant inherited from their deceased parents. The room Eiji was renting was located right over the restaurant in Chinatown, in the apartment where Shorter lived with his sister and her boyfriend Charlie, who was a cop in the NYPD. During his freshman year, Eiji had lived in one of the school’s residence halls off Union Square and University Place, but it was expensive and Eiji didn’t want to burden his mother and grandmother. Eiji’s little sister, Tomako, was still in high school, and his father had died several years ago from liver disease, so renting an affordable room seemed the prudent thing to do. 

He had met Shorter during his freshman year. They were in the same cohort of students who took their foundation classes together and they had hit it off immediately. Shorter was outgoing, chatty, and sported a mohawk which he dyed all sorts of colors, although he favored a loud purplish-pink. Shorter was studying to be a sculptor and secretly hoping to make a career out of selling cast bronze replicas of genitalia, male and female. There were two other Asian kids in their cohort, both Chinese, one named Sing Soo-Ling and the other Lee Yut-Lung. Sing grew up in Chinatown like Shorter and was a graphic design major, even though he really wanted to be a cartoonist. His mother saw no future in that, insisting that Sing choose a more sensible career. Sing had a rebellious streak, but when it came to family, he was loyal.

Unlike Sing, Shorter, and Eiji—who were all scraping by financially and eating instant ramen and day-old bagels sold half-priced to fill their hungry bellies—Yut-Lung was from a very wealthy family and could afford to dine wherever he wanted. Yut-Lung’s eldest half-brother, Wang-Lung, was president of Chinatown’s major bank, and there were rumors that the Lee family had extensive underworld ties. As the youngest of seven sons, Yut-Lung was at turns ignored and bullied by his older siblings and was a glutton for attention. He was studying to be a fashion designer and the way Yut-Lung dressed and carried himself spoke volumes about his upbringing. He was impeccable in his speech, groomed to perfection, and a total asshole. Sing, who was spunky and sharp-witted, tolerated Yut-Lung’s snobbish attitude for some reason. Maybe he felt sorry for Yut-Lung, who had all that money could buy…except genuine friends and happiness.

***

The first week of the fall semester was a whirlwind of excitement and chaos for Eiji: acclimating to a new schedule of courses, finding the classrooms, pushing and shoving through the clogged aisles of Kate’s Paperie in Greenwich Village and Pearl Paint on Canal Street, hunting for bargains through the used textbook section at Barnes and Nobles on East 17th Street and for discounted art books at the Strand in the East Village, and loading up on photo supplies at B&H on West 17th Street. It was exhausting, especially after Eiji had spent the summer break in his hometown of Izumo being pampered by his mother, grandmother, and sister, who would bring him cold drinks made from the plums harvested in their own backyard while he lay in the hammock after a leisurely day of taking photos at the various temples.

“Sheesh. You’d think you were _Chinese_ , the way they spoil you at home,” Shorter grinned when Eiji complained of feeling overwhelmed after just four days of classes with no one to cook for him. “I didn’t know the Japanese treat their firstborn sons like kings too.”

“It’s probably because I’m the _only_ male member of the house,” Eiji explained. “If my dad were still alive, they’d probably expect a lot more from me. As it is, I think they’re just happy I’m going to school instead of moping around.” He sat up from the single bed in his small room and cranked up the fan on the nightstand. It was hot that evening and there was no central air conditioning in the rooms above the restaurant. Shorter, who was wearing a Black Flag T-shirt and didn’t mind the heat one bit, was in Eiji’s room helping him unpack the supplies he had picked up at B &H Photo after classes that day. Shorter had no interest in photography, aside from enjoying all the pictures in porn magazines.

“Yeah, I get that,” Shorter laughed. When his own parents had died in a car accident, he was thirteen and his sister Nadia sixteen. They were put under the temporary guardianship of an aunt and uncle. Nadia was grateful to be spared being sent into foster care but Shorter, angry and bitter over the sudden changes in his life, reacted by running wild in the street as a gangbanger. By the time he was fifteen, he had served a stint in a juvenile detention center for repeated theft and assault charges. When he got out, though, Nadia had turned eighteen and inherited the family’s business, as well as responsibility for him. Shorter straightened up and flew right after that. He loved his sister and wouldn’t be a burden to her. Plus, she would beat the shit out of him with a rolling pin if he got arrested again. She was dating a cop, after all, and even though Charlie was willing to bail Shorter out of trouble at the police station if he could manage it, Nadia wouldn’t stand for any nonsense.

“Don’t you fucking embarrass me, Shorter,” Nadia told him. “Don’t you shame this family.”

Shorter might be the first and only born son of this particular branch of the Wong family, but he didn’t get a free pass from his sister. What he did get from her was plenty of love, discipline, and good cooking, and he would do his best not to disappoint her. That meant no more gangbanging, finishing high school, and getting a degree. The problem was, Shorter wasn’t good with the intellectual side of things—things like reading and writing, math and science—but he _was_ good with his hands—taking something apart and putting it back together—skills that had led to him stealing car parts for the black market. If only he could find some kind of lucrative way to make use of those skills legally. 

It was a chance encounter at a club in the East Village one night that gave him the idea to study sculpture. He was at CBGBs to see the Misfits perform and he happened to notice a poster for an exhibition by an artist going by the moniker Cynthia Plaster Caster who had ‘documented’ the genitalia of the men she had fucked, some of them famous musicians, most notably Jimi Hendrix. Shorter underwent one of those “Aha!” moments. He had found the perfect outlet for his dexterous hand skills and his very healthy interest in sex; whether it would prove to be a lucrative endeavor remained to be seen, but at least he had a goal in mind, and that had led to enrolling as an art student at Parsons and meeting Eiji Okumura, spoiled brat from Japan.

Spoiled or not, Eiji was adorable, what with his big round baby eyes and unruly hair, a look that so accurately expressed Eiji’s sweet, naïve and, at times, helpless nature. Shorter was glad to have Eiji as a housemate, not just because they were in the same program at the same college and they got along so well; he saw in Eiji a replacement for the friends he had to leave behind when he promised Nadia he would be a good boy from now on, friends who had shared his own interests in music along with a predilection for troublemaking. Eiji was far more innocent than those boys, but he was open minded and quirky in a humorous way, and Shorter wanted to be the one to lead Eiji down a path filled with fun and adventure and hopefully more than a few shenanigans of the naughty sort. Eiji had been an athlete when he was a student in Japan and he definitely had an athlete’s build: though he was average in height, especially for a former pole vaulter, he was lean and firm under his shirts with the goofy bird cartoons. Shorter could only imagine how sexy cute Eiji must have been in competition, flying through the air wearing a tank top and shorts, his junk held snuggly in a jockstrap.

“Hey, Eiji, how ‘bout you model for me this year? I’m gonna need someone for all my figure studies,” Shorter proposed stealthily. He thought it best to leave the whole “I want to cast your penis” detail out of it for now, offering instead, “I’ll model for you in return.” 

Eiji’s dark eyes lit up. “That’s wonderful! Yes, what a great idea!” Left to his own devices, Eiji would have never asked Shorter to pose for him, not because he wasn’t attractive, but because he was _too_ attractive. Shorter was tall and muscular and had thick biceps that made Eiji blush and, now that they were living under the same roof, Eiji had also gotten several eyefuls of Shorter’s very shapely ass and substantial package barely contained by the tight little briefs he’d walk around in before going to bed. It was getting to be a real hardship for Eiji to keep his gaze fixed on Shorter’s face whenever Shorter came into his room to say good night...he didn’t know how he’d survive the semester like this, trying to get to sleep each night with a raging boner and dreams of Shorter posing naked for him. Little did Eiji know that Shorter was dealing with the same dilemma. Little did either know that things would get a whole lot more complicated.

________

Here's the song that Eiji hears as he walks through Washington Square Park: [Simple Minds, Don't You Forget About Me](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jlHz0wF0Ig)

The song came out in summer of 1985 which fits right into the timeline of this story.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Black Beauties = one of many varieties of speed/amphetamine popular in the 1980s.
> 
> Yoshida never gives us the name of Eiji’s younger sister as far as I can remember (correct me if I’m wrong), so I’m naming her Tomako in this story.
> 
> Kate’s Paperie and Pearl Paint no longer exist today, but since this fic is taking place in 1985 as in the manga, I’ll be mentioning places that would have been around back then and in their original locations.


	23. Chapter 23

It was three weeks into the semester and Eiji had his routine all worked out: get up at 6:30 am, shower, wake up Shorter by pounding on his back, dress, take the R train up to 14th Street and Union Square, transfer to the crosstown shuttle, then walk one block west to 5th Avenue, and one block south to 13th Street. Eat a stale bagel on the way while lugging a bulky portfolio and backpack. It was a typical art student’s life in NYC and having Shorter as company on the commute each day was nice, even if it was Eiji who made sure they were on time and heading to the right rooms. By now, Eiji didn’t have to refer to his class schedule; he had it memorized. He and Shorter still shared the same core classes since their major requirements wouldn’t begin to diverge until the spring semester.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the studio classes that were occupying Eiji’s thoughts. What he found more and more interesting was his bi-weekly art history class at The New School, where all Parsons students took their academic requirements. He had an English writing class there, as well as a philosophy of art class, and of course he had his second level art history class. His first year, he had done rather poorly. His English comprehension wasn’t the greatest and he had trouble even staying awake in the darkened room as slide after slide was shown. It didn’t help that the class was right after his lunch break, but this year his art history class was also right after his lunch break, only…he had no trouble at all staying awake.

“Hey, check out the blond dude,” Shorter had commented on the first day. 

Eiji had stared intently at the slender man standing at the chalkboard writing a long list of artist names and dates, and then a short elderly woman with dyed red hair had walked in and introduced herself as Professor So-and-So. One could literally feel the entire room deflate with disappointment. 

“He’s just the assistant,” Eiji had deduced correctly, but even he was surprised at how youthful and attractive the man was when he turned around for the few moments it took for him to settle into a seat in the front row by the lectern. The assistants assigned to professors were graduate students, known technically as G.A.s, but this one looked even _younger_ than the undergraduates in the class. Eiji sat up straighter in his plastic chair ten rows back in the lecture hall and made a mental note to himself: sit in the second row next time.

Shorter shifted in his seat next to Eiji, one hand adjusting _something_ under the little flip-down desktop. “Shit, he’s hot.” 

“He wears _glasses_ ,” Eiji replied, as if he were being cool and critical. He didn’t want to sound too eager, because that would be so fucking embarrassing, although he couldn’t deny that the wire-frame glasses worn by the blond G.A. were turning him on. Eiji had always been sensitive about his own poor eyesight and it was the reason he wore contacts instead. Besides, he wouldn’t have been able to wear glasses AND pole vault at the same time, so at least he had reasons other than sheer vanity to justify the cost of contacts during his athletic competition days. Now, well, he just wanted people to think he was cute so he could get laid finally. The fact that this blond guy was wearing glasses made him rethink things, things like, “Wow, he’s not afraid to look like a dork,” and, “How can I possibly get in his pants?” Of course, Eiji would never ever, not in a million years, ever say any of those things out loud, but saying them in his head was okay. Yeah, it was okay…unless the blond was some kind of mind reader…then…

“I would be screwed,” Eiji muttered under his breath.

“Huh?” Shorter grunted beside him as the lights dimmed and the first slide was projected onto the screen at the front of the room. “Did you say you wanna screw him?”

“Shhhh!!!” Eiji hushed loudly. Suddenly, art history wasn’t so boring, not when he could concentrate on a golden mop of hair, hair that he could imagine running his fingers through. Would it be thick and slightly coarse like his own hair, or would those tresses be soft and silky like the fur of a cat? As the professor dove into the impact of Marxism on art in Europe, all Eiji could concentrate on was the most beautiful profile framed by a halo of gold. It was ridiculous to think such a thing, but Eiji couldn’t stop the words from echoing through his mind: “I wonder what he looks like naked.” 

***

Eiji got a C- on his first art history quiz of the semester. Normally, this would have put him in a panic because he was a conscientious student, hardworking and a stickler for completing all his assignments. Even though English was his second language and he struggled with it, he earned decent grades in his academics from studying hard. That art history course, though, was proving to be a black hole; he simply could NOT focus on the the lectures given by the professor. How could he when that stunningly handsome G.A. was there, jotting notes on the chalkboard and then sitting like a living, breathing work of art right in front of him? Shorter was crushing just as hard on the guy, but that didn’t stop him from teasing Eiji about his own fixation. 

“Hope you busted a nut in the bathroom before class,” Shorter whispered way too loudly in his ear, “coz I sure did.”

“Shorter…please don’t say such things,” Eiji groaned.

“What? I tell it like it is, man. You hard right now?”

Eiji opened his notebook and started sketching a penis before he realized what he was doing. Then he was saved when the lights dimmed down and the monotonous voice of Professor-So-and-So began droning in the dark. This was ridiculous. He had to get his act together because he could not afford to fail any classes. He forced himself to take coherent notes for the first time all semester. When the lights came back on after forty-five minutes, Eiji was pleased with himself. He had filled three pages of college ruled paper. Whether his notes would make any sense when he read them over was another matter. Still, he smiled with satisfaction as he gathered his things; the quiz that had been handed back at the start of the class was shoved into his backpack, the C- slightly less painful. Then, it got a _lot_ less painful when the G.A. turned around and pinned him with a brilliant emerald green stare.

“Hey, if you’re having trouble with this class, I’m available for tutoring. It’s part of my G.A. duties,” the blond beauty said.

Eiji stared back, too shocked to reply for several reasons. First, he never expected this paragon of male loveliness to ever speak to him. Second, was he really offering to tutor him? And third, how would he manage to leave the room without anyone noticing he had just creamed his pants? “You have really green eyes,” Eiji mumbled. If his English were better, he might have said they were ‘dazzling’ or something equally over-the-top.

“You don’t have to,” the G.A. continued when Eiji kept gawking. “It’s just that…I noticed the grade you got on the quiz and—”

“Hey,” Shorter interjected, “I got a C- too! Are you playing favorites or something?”

The G.A. gave Shorter a once-over, his bright green eyes resting on Shorter’s thick biceps. “No. I can tutor you, too, if you want.” 

“Heh, if I _want_ ,” Shorter chuckled, giving Eiji a playful elbow in the side. 

There was nothing subtle about the gesture and the G.A. studied both of them for a moment before commenting, “I see.” Then he slung his backpack onto his shoulder and walked out of the room without another word.

Eiji was red with shame. “Why did you say that?”

“What? What did I say?” Shorter replied, genuinely puzzled. 

“I don’t know…what you _want_ and stuff…he must think we’re crazy.”

That brought a smug grin to Shorter’s lips. “Good. Let him think we’re crazy. I mean, aren’t we? Shouldn’t we be? We’re in fucking art school, for shit’s sake. We’re _supposed_ to be crazy.”

Shorter was so open and honest and it worked wonders on Eiji’s own anxiety and insecurity. He couldn’t help smiling back. “Yes, but there’s _normal_ crazy and then there’s _crazy_ crazy.”

“Heh, I wouldn’t mind going _crazy_ crazy on that guy’s ass.”

Later that night, Shorter came into Eiji’s room to say ‘good night’ as usual, except that saying ‘good night’ had developed into non-verbal well-wishes in the form of kissing and groping and quick bouts of mutual masturbation. “Hey, Eiji,” Shorter whispered in the dark as he shifted in bed and made the mattress springs creak. Down the hallway, they could both hear Shorter’s sister Nadia having sex with her boyfriend Charlie, her high-pitched moans echoing through the thin walls. “Do you want a blowjob?”

Eiji’s hand stilled on Shorter’s cock. “You mean…right now?”

There was a snort and then Shorter grumbled, “No, _next year_. Of course right now, you dope.” Shorter didn’t bother waiting for Eiji to equivocate some more. He wriggled down between Eiji’s legs, making the bed squeak even louder, and gave the head of his cock a tentative lick. Eiji stiffened all over, gasping in a sharp breath, and that was all the encouragement Shorter needed to suck Eiji down his throat. Within minutes, he felt Eiji’s hands gripping his hair, then his fists pounding on his shoulders and his strangled voice groaning out a warning. Shorter knew what _that_ meant, but he only pumped his fist faster around the shaft and swirled his tongue around the crown until he heard Eiji cry out and flood his mouth a second later. He swallowed him down, pleased that Eiji’s cum wasn’t bitter. “My sweet little virgin Eiji,” Shorter told him with a kiss.

“Am I still a virgin?” Eiji asked, still breathless. They’d been fooling around for almost a month now. 

“Oh, yeah,” Shorter assured. “Blowjobs and handjobs don’t count. Nothing counts until you go all the way.”

“All the way?” Back in Japan, Eiji hadn’t had a girlfriend in school. He was too busy with academics and sports and, well, he was shy about his looks and felt awkward around the opposite sex. All his socializing was centered around the other boys in his class or on his team, which meant that he had heard his fill of ‘stories’ involving the male conquest of cute girls, most of which were probably 100% untrue and just boys bragging about shit they would be too chicken to do even if the opportunity dropped right in their laps.

That was then; he was nineteen now and in college. He didn’t want to end up a virgin his whole life, that was for sure, and though he hadn’t envisioned himself getting it on with another guy, it didn’t gross him out either. In fact, he liked Shorter an awful lot and could even admit to himself that the dude was darn sexy. He had a great body, a nice face, an even better sense of humor and personality, and he was horny all the time, which meant that Eiji was getting milked pretty much every night. Still, they had yet to ‘go all the way’ as Shorter put it, and Eiji wasn’t sure if this was the right thing to do. Would it make it any more ‘right’ if he did it with a girl instead? Probably not; besides, every time he fantasized about having sex with someone, he pictured himself with Shorter and…that blond G.A. He fell asleep that night and, despite the blowjob earlier, Eiji woke up the next morning after a wet dream in which he was naked in the shower with Shorter and the blond, his body sandwiched between the two of them as they had their way with him. If only he could make that dream come true.

 


End file.
